ONCE UPON 24 TIMES: STORY XII

Story the Twelfth:
Two of Swords -
The Fire Prince and the Ice Princess

All children in Westeros know the story. The way their septas have told them already in the cradle. The way mummers perform it on stage. The tale of the damsel and the dragon, and of the hero who slew the aforementioned reptilian beast, a bloodthirsty three-headed scarlet monster, by crushing the heart within its ribcage.
When they come of age, however, some children will be confronted with the truth about what happened in real life. Which is completely different from the storybook version.
For starters, the dragon was not a dragon. At least he was no three-headed, bloodthirsty reptilian beast.


They were as different as fire and ice, yet, in spite of their Stark (and Targaryen) difference in temperament, quite unexpectedly, right when his periwinkle orbs and her irises grey as steel exchanged a sudden glance,

ONCE UPON 24 TIMES... STORY V

Story the Fifth
Ten of Wands
Rumplestiltskin
(Tyrionsa: Copper Spun Into Gold)
There was once a decent fellow, so honest that he lost his head. But he had a lovely daughter, who had just left the provinces up north for the royal castle, and of whom it was said at court:
"All that copper thread on her head, with the ransom her brother will pay, will be spun into gold." Or so the Queen Mother believed. For the realm was broke, and full of corruption, and teetering upon the brink of war.
So the maiden was led into a bedchamber full of silks and jewels in cool colours, to fit the colour of her eyes, and string instruments she could play like a virtuosa. It looked like a wonderful parlour, but was actually a gilded dungeon.
And the King of all the land, a mere stripling as stubborn as he was cruel, packed her by the wrists and said, with piercing green eyes:
"Now set to work and polish your courtly graces, for we are awaiting your lord brother to pay the ransom; and, if he does not accept our conditions and spin your copper hair into gold, and nip a war in the bud, you must die. After all, there's traitor's blood in your veins..."
Then he shut the door in her face and left her locked inside.
So poor Sansa sat down on her bed, tears in her azure eyes, and she did not know what on Earth she was to do. At last she broke into sobs and tears.
Suddenly, there was a friendly knock at the door, it opened gently, and there stood a little imp with odd eyes (the right one black, the left one green), short crooked legs, and a shock of platinum hair with golden streaks.
"Good evening, traitor's daughter. Why are you crying so bitterly?" he kindly asked her.
"The copper on my head will be spun into gold, a ransom paid will bring me home to Winterfell, but I have not a clue on how it's done."
"I know how to play the game of thrones," the imp replied. "Every day around this time, I will sneak into your bedchamber and teach you how to treat them. The Queen Mother is my all-but-perfect older sister, after all..."
"I would give you anything; this lilac hairnet, for instance," the maiden replied.
And the imp spread out a cyvasseboard on the bed and challenged her to a game of cyvasse. It was so hard thinking that her head ached and she grew sleepy. Of course Sansa lost the game.
"It will take ages for you to master," the imp replied. And they played cyvasse that day until nightfall, when, exhausted, she wearily drew her royal blue bed-curtains and wished the odd-eyed imp goodnight.
And she slept the good sleep of the innocent, drifting away to her native hinterland and to snowy eaves among conifer woods, until the dawn crept up the waves in the next morn.
A few hours after the sun rose, the King and the Queen Mother came, and both golden-haired royals were astonished at her mastery of the courtly ways, but their icy hearts were lusting more than ever for the precious ransom. Thus, when she was left alone with His Grace, he pinned the traitor's daughter to the wall and, holding his shortsword to her throat, hissed into her face:
"If you value your life, 'Princess' of the North, and those of your friends and kinsfolk, I hope that every single fire-kissed hair on your head, and also on your limbs, should be spun into gold as soon as possible." In sooth, young Joffrey was pleased beyond measure at his little game, but his thirst for pain, and the realm's thirst for gold, were not yet quenched. "And, if you succeed, this time you shall become my queen."
Sansa's heart sank in her chest, like a lead weight.
"She's only a traitor's daughter, and a traitor she will become; it's as true as the Wall of her home is made of ice. But I couldn't find a better wife if my men went to search, from Dorne to Winterfell... for she has not even shuddered as I pack her by the wrists, tickle her throat with cold steel, toss her to the ground... Even though Lord Grandfather mentions the Tyrell girl over and over again. Like, what do I know about a complete stranger?" the young ruler thought to himself.
When the maiden was alone, her skin as bruised as her self-esteem, in her bedchamber, the imp appeared on his short stumpy legs once more, and asked in the usual friendly way: "What would you give me in exchange for another lesson?"
"I have nothing more to give," she sighed.
"Then, promise me your own hand in marriage."
"Doesn't he know that I'm his nephew's fiancée?" the traitor's daughter thought. And, besides that, there was no other way out of the predicament. The imp might not be a pretty sight, but he was friendly and clever, completely unlike her crowned betrothed. So she promised the odd-eyed imp what he demanded. And they set to work once more as usual.
When the King came in the morn, and found everything as he desired, he straightaway packed his fiancée by the wrists and, dragging her into the throne room, proclaimed her officially as his bride... but was interrupted by his own lady mother and lord grandfather, and by an old dowager dressed in the Reacher fashion: Olenna Tyrell, the grandmother of the bride.
And Sansa thought of the future queen whom she would soon get to know, hoping that she would give her spouse a taste of his own pain... and, all of a sudden, she remembered the imp. She had not made it to Winterfell yet, the war had reaped countless casualties... and the Tyrells were now officially allied with House Lannister thanks to this engagement... She really hoped that the odd-eyed, stumpy-legged little imp would keep his word.

Days, weeks, moon-turns rolled on... and at last the Tyrells came to the Red Keep. The whole clan, lock, stock, and barrel... not only the bride and her grandmother, but her parents and siblings as well. And Sansa the traitor's daughter made friends with Margaery Tyrell, Margaery of the nutbrown hair and the hazel eyes, for the latter was more outspoken and was the one who started the friendship between both maidens.

She also made friends with the matriarch, her granny Olenna Tyrell, who was wise beyond understanding, and had decades of experience... and, while she was away playing her instrument in her gilded dungeon, the imp and the Tyrells hatched a plan to set Sansa free.

Only that she knew nought of that scheme.

At last the springtime sky was clear and wedding bells pealed loud and clear in the Great Sept. For the Royal Wedding, guests from the Vale of Arryn to Dorne gathered around the young bridal pair, in the vast gardens of the Red Keep. 

And Sansa thought of her own marriage to the imp, which had been against her will, and how clever and charming he was in spite of his stature; nothing like the self-absorbed bridegroom in that wedding.

Before the ceremony and the wedding feast, the imp had given her back the hairnet with all its amethysts, telling her to wear it at the royal wedding "for good luck." So now Sansa wore the hairnet, as she watched the dishes being cleared away. The imp, as cupbearer, picked a special amethyst from Sansa's hairnet and put it in his nephew's drink.

He drained the chalice at one single deep draught, to wash down the dry wedding cake...

and all hell broke loose.

Shortly after swallowing his drink, Joffrey began to cough and to retch. His ribcage felt constricted as if by a serpent, then his jaws locked up - he couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe, his earlobes and the tip of his nose turned blue (well, bluish). The young ruler knew he had been poisoned, but he was unable to throw up what he had drunk.

"Joffrey dear... JOFFREY!!" The Queen Mother screamed as he collapsed in her arms, suffocated, heartbeat erratic, going still and finally cold and silent. Her makeup ran dry with the streams of tears that ran down her face; no sorrow equals that of a mother who has lost her child forever.

In the ensuing chaos, the imp led Sansa to the cellars of the Red Keep, to the part where crates full of goods like Reach fruit and grain were shipped across the Narrow Sea. Using a footstool, he got inside an oversized crate first, then helped her get inside.

It was quite cramped inside, and even dark as Sansa put the lid back into place. "Don't breathe a word! Don't even whisper!" the imp said, putting an index finger to her lips.

She sighed and obeyed, and even shuddered as the crate was lifted and put into a wagon headed for the harbour of King's Landing. They would get married somewhere in Slaver's Bay upon arrival; living among slavers in another climate would be preferrable to that nest of asps, the Red Keep, which she was now delighted to no longer call home.

COMMENTARY

This bunny I had for quite a while, I mean Sansa and Tyrion remind me so much of Rumplestiltskin and the heroine in his tale... You can see it is an AU, with an alternate ending with Sansa leaving for Slaver's Bay with Tyrion instead of for the Eyrie with Lord Baelish... I want my Sansa to be happy, and to get to know the imp (like Belle got to know the Beast, or Jane Eyre got to know Rochester), looking beyond appearances.

Maybe also Sansa will join Dany's entourage and give her intel about what is going on in King's Landing? That is the fun thing about AUs, you get to rewrite the story however you like!

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DANGEROUS LIAISONS IN WESTEROS

ALL RIGHT!!!
WINTER SEASON'S GREETINGS (XMAS, YULE/SOLSTICE, HANUKKAH...) TO ALL OF YOU ONCE MORE, DEAR READERS!

And, as usual, here is this year's traditional Westeros fantasy AU.

For this Christmas, I will be doing something completely different from my usual Westeros fairytales, but that still fits the hashtag #OnceUponWesteros.
Rather, this will be a collection of poems inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, with various pairings and retellings of the Ovidian stories.

...introduction
"Right, let us begin! And, when we have reached the end
of this story, we'll know so much more..."
Thus does HC Andersen open his Snow Queen.
What will our descendants say about us
after we are deceased?
Which songs shall the children of decades to come sing?
How will they remember us, if they ever remember?
These are stories that have endured for two millennia,
perfectly preserved like bugs encased in amber.
Sing, Muses, of those that came before us,
of hope and despair, of friendship and illusions,
of tragedy and trauma...
of life itself.


...jamais séparés
For Marina Sorel, for both her birthday and Christmas
The Lannisters were proud and clever;
the Starks were righteous and honest.
The Lannisters were blond and green-eyed;
the Starks were dark-haired and blue- or grey-eyed.
The Lannisters thought the Starks were old-fashioned
with those notions of honour and honesty;
while the Starks thought the Lannisters were ruthless,
without any thought not of their own greatness.
It came as no surprise that both Great Houses
had always been at each other's throats,
and even declared war on one another.
Lancel was but a Lannister of a cadet branch,
a nephew to Lord Tywin, yet one could see
by his golden hair and peridot eyes
from which stock he came. Nevertheless,
he was a comely stripling,
without the more mature beauty of Ser Jaime or of
their elders before midlife set in...
Sansa was a hostage brought from the North,
who had just arrived at Casterly Rock:
in spite of having her mother's Tully features
(those aqua orbs, those fire-red locks, those cheekbones...),
one could find she had a Stark's will and mettle,
which, added to her loveliness,
felt like a silk brocade gown concealing steel.
She was given a bedchamber in the same tower
as Ser Kevan's children,
and chance would have it
that there was a hole in the partition wall
between her chamber and Lancel's,
and, on each side, one could see
a bright and friendly eye:
a green orb on the left, a blue one on the right.
As time went by, they grew closer and closer,
putting their faces closer to that hole,
asking one another questions,
as Lancel began to feel a little twinge
for the orphan of enemy stock
and Sansa's heart began to open up
to the stripling of foemen's descent.
And thus, they gradually began
to pour one another's lives into their ears:
it was the same yearning,
the same weariness,
the same warm feelings of youth at heart,
as he listened to her Northern songs
and she watched him go to bed every evening,
not knowing that he was thinking of her,
dreaming of her,
having shed unmanly tears for her misfortunes...
Sansa herself had put into those songs all her sorrows,
her dreams of courtly glory turned to chains and ashes,
and never had she expected a courtier or (worse?) a Lannister
to feel truthfully sorry for her.
So they came to trust each other,
laughing and crying like children once more,
then finding out that it hurt when they parted,
in the middle of the chest and a little to the left.
And they became one another's keeper
of that painful, blazing secret.
Why was he a Lannister and she a Stark?
Or, more importantly,
could their love hold the key to peace at last?
And those were lovely days, and lovely nights,
and lovely twilight hours,
whenever his parents did not find out;
yet all good things must come to an end:
Ser Kevan and Lord Tywin had had a talk
of what to do with the cadet Lannisters;
the stern patriarch had spoken of a calling
within the walls of septs for his eldest nephew
(lest Lancel reached the heights of royalty
which Tywin's own children had risen to);
there was talk of the Great Sept in King's Landing...
As soon as the stripling heard of this plan,
a shudder ran down his spine:
to leave Sansa, and never to make love,
sworn to the Gods for life?
So that evening, pale as a lily-petal,
he told her of what his elders had chosen
so treacherously behind his back:
they would leave for the capital within three days
(whether by land or by sea was not certain yet);
"Rather than offer incense to the Maiden,
I would burn myself for you..."
The Stark girl looked at him, tears in her eyes,
without anyone else within her heart,
and thus, a counter-scheme was forged:
what could Lord Tywin's worldly power do against young love?
Through the breach in the partition, she would receive
a set of his spare clothes,
including a bonnet to hide her copper locks,
and, knowing every passageway within Casterly Rock
(which Lannister children, while playing hide-and-seek,
always caught a rough grasp of),
they would stealthily steal, next evening, for the docks,
and board a carrack bound for Dorne.
That plan was ostensibly flawless;
Sansa got her boy's clothes, and a hairpin of hers
was soon twisted into a lock-pick.
Lancel would also get it, slipped through the gap,
after Sansa was done prying the keyhole.
The next step, their promised land of free love!
And now came the fated evening of the tryst,
and she, already clad in doublet and hose,
having picked the lock and passed the hairpin
to the golden-haired lad,
Sansa stole past the guards, leaned on the wall
and on their spears, lips stained with Dornish red;
knowing they would be drunk,
she set her bonnet right and ran away,
knowing more or less where the docks were,
thanks to Lancel's directions.
Given wings by her youthful enthusiasm,
descending down endless flights of spiral stairs,
she was suddenly startled;
off fell the bonnet, she heard marching steps
and saw lions of gold
glittering in the twilit staircase, approaching.
Was her true self revealed? And what awaited her?
So frightened was Sansa Stark
that she turned around, and, losing her footing,
she suddenly fell backwards,
screaming as she was thrust
reeling down the stairs.
The soldiers, however, did not spot the bonnet;
they just stopped mid-way across the staircase,
turning left, into their barracks,
right as Sansa fell backwards down the stairs.
However, someone heard the scream and the thud of her fall,
and picked up the fine, puffy, scarlet headdress
trimmed with that golden ribbon:
arriving through a shortcut,
a golden-haired stripling, fearing the worst.
"How dare the jealous Stranger wrest her from me?
This fate's not ours by right!
Why did I not come first to save her life?
The fault was neither hers nor mine at heart:
all we were was young folk making mistakes!"
Then, drawing steel, a shortsword he'd taken for self-defence,
at first hesitantly, young Lancel Lannister
plunged it into his own left side as from his lips
sprang foam with a known taste of salt and steel;
the blade soon pierced the left half of the heart,
and the stripling's form reeled downstairs as well,
down to the step where, rising finally,
not feeling her left arm anymore
since it cracked and the pain racked her as if it were torn off
when she fell down the stairs,
fair Sansa Stark heard a thud in the twilight,
and, leaning closer, catching but a glimpse
of golden hair and those lovely features,
his mint-green eyes no longer glittering, and on his lips
a dried-up bloody stain...
a bloodless form, as pale as her childhood snows...
she cradled him only with her right arm,
seeing the pommel of the sword on his left side
(a wound so deep that she knew
his lover's heart was broken twice);
she had expected to see foreign lands
and live anew with Lancel by her side;
yet her dreams were as shattered as her left shoulder;
she dried up her tears on his blood-stained sleeves,
tearing at her Tully-red hair,
kissing his ice-cold, pallid features
while remembering Winterfell...
"He saw the bonnet and heard me fall down,
and thus, left me for dead...
out of chance arose that painful mistake
that filled my love with dread...
So bold it was, I'd never thought that you
should dare to take your life;
let the Maiden give strength to these weak hands
and sever me from strife!"
And thus, wishing their elders could accept
that painful wish of hers,
she drew the sword a little from his side,
and slit her wrists across,
first the left, then the right, across the blade...
No joy or hope was left
for the fair stripling or the red-haired maid
who were, next day, together in state laid,
though he was buried as a Lannister
and her remains by Winterfell and Riverrun
were claimed; at the end of the day,
a decision was made as peace was signed.
Come to Pinkmaiden Castle,
where Westerlands and Riverlands conjoin,
and, within the Pipers' sept, you shall find
a carved stone on the floor, at the Maiden's feet,
with an inscription mourning two young lovers:
"Both alike in dignity,
torn by ancient enmity,
short his and her life.
Love of Lannister and Stark,
tragic, overthrew the dark,
harsh ancestral strife."


...game, set, and match
For Liza Pluijter Izquierdo
Dearest Margaery:
I am writing this letter by a warm fireside,
sucking the quill's end, wrapped in my dark green
officer's pelisse, inlaid with gold lace,
with golden wings on my shoulders
and a single rose on each sleeve;
the mark of a freshly-baked lieutenant.
Perchance this is my last letter to you,
a letter from the war front,
on the eve of the first and maybe last battle that I
have ever fought for real.
I hope you are all right,
that the courtiers or your in-laws do not tear you to shreds,
and that Joffrey will be at least a decent spouse.
After all, he is the heir to the whole realm...
and still, Renly, while still a vassal prince,
was far lovelier and surpassed your bridegroom,
as you know, in all possible ways.
Renly Baratheon, that charming young man,
who never gave his heart to a maiden...
When I first appeared at Storm's End,
sent as a page from Highgarden,
it became as obvious as the light of day
that, with liveliness and loveliness extreme,
I won his heart, and he won mine in return.
What was that throbbing feeling in my left side,
and why did he feel like that as well?
There was no mistake.
Sometimes he would play with my golden curls,
remarking that they were like springs,
or I ran lithe fingers through his straight raven hair,
as my rosy cheeks flushed even more...
Oh, how pleasant conversation,
how lovely string duets,
in the shade of the wisteria arbour,
sometimes crowning one another with its flowers;
while he neglected his lordship duties
and had to be reminded by his guardians
every now and then...
They saw it as friendship; only we knew the secret.
And how far did he send those balls!
Seriously, it was as tennis partners,
whether shirtless or in shirts,
both of us with our hair tied in a queue,
that we had our best afternoons together...
all it took was one of us waving a racket
and winking a friendly eye,
sometimes a honey eye of mine, sometimes Renly's, bright blue,
for the other to understand...
during the match, we forgot everything else...
and then,
after the match, no matter who had won,
all flustered, and thirsty, and burned out,
after having drunk and as our heartbeat had settled,
we went off into the godswood pool,
all glittering with perspiration,
to wash and to refresh ourselves, undressed,
and my curls would turn dark and limp,
and I would trace Renly's chest, his throat, his limbs...
while he washed my back,
that of the little stripling who felt
something stronger than admiration
for his twentyish liege lord.
And then it was my turn to wash his back,
after he'd rubbed my rear clean,
which always made me chortle...
Right, but then came all these concerns,
including that Renly must have a bride,
and I showed him that portrait of you in the locket...
Needless to say, both our households approved
of a Baratheon-Tyrell betrothal.
It was like a story of wishes come true,
yet how often has wish-fulfillment
often taken a turn for the worse,
like the shock of reality
after a wonderful dream?
You know the wedding:
a Friday in springtime,
our friends, our family, Renly's guardians,
all of us in our holiday best
(the bride and groom, in the best of the best,
as well as yours truly, the best man and brother of the bride),
a cool drink of champagne on ice,
and then, a lot of spare time after the wedding
and before the feast...
and the bridegroom excusing himself to relieve himself,
then returning, racket in hand as usual.
I meant... why, I was up for tennis!
And our friends and relatives from the Reach
would surely like to see it from up close,
as well as all those Stormlanders had done...
Right. So I fetched my own racket,
and off we headed for the tennis court.
And, right before, I still remember their encouragement:
for Reacher pride, and to defeat that Stormlander,
and whatever not.
I swear Renly must have been told the same
but in reverse. For Stormlands pride...
Now both of us played that match in shirts,
but still wearing our cravats;
apparently, Renly was too fond of his cravat pin to part with it.
So we were warming up,
and, while I'm tying my queue ribbon,
I notice he's still wearing that cravat, with a golden Reach rose pin...
so stubborn, so headstrong, that I didn't want to say no.
After all, it was a whim on his wedding day!
So, it was Baratheon to serve...
and there I stood, racket ready,
Tyrell returns the ball, now Baratheon,
now Tyrell... I mean, we were all focused
on nothing more... it's just like warfare,
but without casualties;
and then I thought that all wars could be solved
by giving each commander-in-chief a racket...
So the first set is over... now I take his place across the net
and he takes mine in turn (who had won the set?
Little I care, but all I remember
is that it all boiled down to the match point)...
It all gave the impression of a fencing match on stage,
with each one of us striking the ball in turn,
racket always ready,
hop, step, jump, forehand, backhand,
both of us pressed into finding new tricks,
sometimes missing, sometimes throwing
the other off-kilter...
When it all boiled down to the match point,
to break the tie that kept us at one-one...
I mean, it was Tyrell to serve...
it was Tyrell to serve...
and there he was, all tense,
his shirt glued to the skin with perspiration...
and he was still wearing that cravat
with that golden rose pin...
oh, and it was Tyrell to serve...
(At this point, I am wavering)
KYAH!
And there was this rally, not unlike those in the sets before,
and it's Tyrell to...
it's Tyrell with the sun in his face, squinting, at a disadvantage,
the thwack of a racket striking a ball...
yet, instead of the more familiar thwack response,
what came was a thud,
and there, across the net, his grip leaving the racket,
was Renly, lilywhite, reeling as if drunk,
a rosy foam bubbling from his lips,
staining a shirt he'd nevertheless had to change.
And the tennis ball at his feet.
It really made my blood curdle.
Well, I was in such a state of shock...
I just leapt over the net and cradled him as he fell,
as he softly tilted his pale head to the right
like a wilting flower
and a gurgle could be heard inside his chest...
for he could not breathe
and was drowning in his own blood;
I had nailed the cravat pin into his throat!
Once, that hot blood had throbbed in a heart
full of intense love, and passions, and inspiration,
of youthful impulse, rêverie...
until right before that instant.
So cold, so pale, beyond the surgeons' skill,
there he lay, uncannily tranquil,
eyes closed and heart stopping,
right when both of us had all life before us...
and it was my fault,
a heartbreak, a betrayal, beyond reason,
caused by my own right arm... the blame is mine,
if love or zeal in sports could be called guilt...
and, ever since, I have never loved again
or ever wielded a racket ever since.
During my last stay at court,
when he lay in state, in that glass case,
I just couldn't confront the truth.
The shock of reality was too much for
a heart already half-turned to ice.
So, when there was talk of war in the North
against the dark forces that threaten
all the lands of Westeros,
I could not say no.
And so, maybe in fields of gold
in a lovely afterlife,
Renly Baratheon will not have to wait,
and he will surely forgive what I have done.
Keep your dearest brother, dearest Margaery,
within your heart, like I keep Renly
until a gunshot or a bayonet
finally bridges the distance across us.
Put your bravest face on at the royal court,
and never let them grind you down
or eat you alive.
I know you can play it like a primadonna.
Yours truthfully and sincerely,
your brother and your late husband's love,
Lieutenant Loras Tyrell.


...two halves of a whole
Dearest Jaime!
I am writing this letter with a wavering pen,
not thinking aught but of you...
though we are siblings,
we are no longer children,
and a kiss means no longer the same...
neither does an embrace...
neither does "I love you..."
The Targaryen royals that came before us
have, after all, always married that way,
brother-husbands to sister-wives,
and so have done the Warrior and the Maiden...
why should we Lannisters not do as gods
or kings and queens?
The Maiden herself seems to have decreed
that your heart should be mine and mine be yours...
I am sitting in a room hung with gilded mirrors
all over the walls,
yet none of their reflections please me at all;
I am longing for my reflection of flesh and blood...
I feel so cold, so lonely, on my own...
Though I feel so ashamed of telling you my name,
and I leave it to you to solve the riddle...
surely, you may find out who wrote this letter
in her own blood, from a broken heart,
leaving her bled-dry face as pale as ice,
drying up her tears for them not to strike the ink...
that's too vast an ocean for these peridot orbs.
How often has this broken heart sighed...
Remember how I would clasp your slender waist,
and steal a kiss from those parted lips?
Though we are siblings,
we are no longer children,
and a kiss means no longer the same...
neither does an embrace...
neither does "I love you..."
Yet my heart is still ablaze,
a searing fever keeps me awake for nights...
The Maiden be my witness,
I tried to claim the reason wrested from me
by these passions, yet my struggle was in vain;
so I flew, for a white flag, this blank sheet
ere I bled ink right there, right here...
Captive and disarmed, I fall at your feet,
rather collapsing than bending the knee,
pleading for mercy and telling you the truth.
Only you, dear reader, can win or lose me,
and you're free to decide, Ser Jaime.
Thus pleads someone closer to you
than anyone else,
wishing to tighten the tie that binds the two of us
even more, so your skin joins my skin...
Let elder lords choose right and wrong in laws;
we are young, and our summer calls for frenzies,
to quench our thirst with forbidden fruit!
Still young as we are,
no longer children, not yet grown up,
the world is our oyster,
nothing is wrong and everything is right
(or at least feels right).
Neither our stern lord father nor the whispers at court
will ever stop us;
should there be a suspicion, why should they wonder
in seeing the Lannister siblings kiss one another?
I have the right... no, rather full powers
to speak to you alone, to clasp your waist,
to steal even a peck from your lips...
How long until we move to darker games?
Feel mercy upon the author of this confession,
real mercy (not the one you always pretend in jest),
since she would never write it if not seared
by such a blaze; and never feel
the guilt of your name written on my grave;
why would a Kingsguard of all men ever bring
about such a tragedy?
Yours truthfully and sincerely,
Someone you know well, yet a stranger to your heart.


...Mère Courage
The eldest daughter of Riverrun,
after wedding the Lord of the North,
had every reason to be proud
of her loving lord husband
and their five trueborn children;
five like the fingers of a hand,
like the arms of a seastar,
like the petals of a jasmine flower.
And Lady Catelyn was proud of them all,
for one reason or another,
as proud and loving as any mum should be.
Robb, the eldest,
was a dashing young man,
with flashing azure eyes
and a heart full of bravery:
the Warrior incarnate, in sooth.
He married for love
and lost his head for that decision
at the Freys' wedding.
Second came Sansa,
the fire-haired and rosy bluebird,
whose voice spoke of skill in music;
always yearning for a more exciting life
since Winterfell had become too narrow...
the lovely maiden's wish at length came true,
but the constraints of courtly life
became a corset and a gilded cage.
Third was Arya, the wild black cat,
the polar opposite of her older sister;
always messy-haired and up to something...
who thought that, after her father's execution,
when she vanished into thin air,
her mother would also miss her?
Fourth was Brandon, or Bran for short,
always climbing treetops and walls
to feed the crows and the pigeons...
it came, therefore, as no surprise,
that he should lose his footing and fall,
and, though alive, be a broken boy,
his legs no longer carrying him.
And fifth and youngest was Rickon,
who had just been weaned, and thus,
was literally the closest one to Catelyn's heart.
She's neither heard of Bran nor Rickon
since the fall of Winterfell,
when their home was taken by storm.
Now who can paint the sorrow
of a mother who has lost her children?
There is no blood left in her heart.
She's but a shadow of her former self.
The heart of the home, the blooming bride...
both of them are long gone.
No tears left in the lady's eyes, she cannot bleed:
her heart is now of stone.


...the girl in the black one-piece
When the foreign child came to Winterfell,
a wartime orphan taken in for charity's sake,
the Starks had only had Robb and Jon Snow,
two boys about the age of the little foreigner.
Eddard Stark had found the waif alone,
in a ruined holdfast, on the war front,
during that repression on the Iron Islands,
without anyone near, so young that his memories
were as hazy as the battlefield itself.
At first, Catelyn winced; "First, you bring me Jon,
and now, yet another frontline dalliance?"
Quite unexpectedly, she understood that her husband
was actually telling her the truth;
and, from on then, the foreign waif, Theon, was raised
with the Stark children as one of them...
yet, deep inside, he understood, as he grew up,
that somehow he didn't fit in.
Even Jon Snow himself was more Stark-ish than Theon,
the latter with shiny black eyes like beads of obsidian
and dark hair sleek, without a single curl.
It was also as plain as his foreign features
that, upon reaching the closing threshold of childhood,
he already towered over both Jon and Robb,
and was far more slender of both shoulders and waist,
even though he devoured and quaffed his supper
and his training was rarely over;
his strength burned out way later than his brothers'.
For every day, the stripling felt more left out,
no matter how many snowball fights and races
against Robb, or how much chaperoning Sansa
seemed to be part of his short life,
or how much wit shone in his eyes and the corners of his smile,
making the maids swoon at the dashing Theon's comments;
there was always the feeling
that his rightful place was not at Winterfell,
that it was elsewhere.
He was but eighteen when he went forth
in pursuit of his rightful place,
without horse or carriage, on his own,
in his finest doublet and puffy breeches,
his raven hair whipping his back in a queue,
the longsword scabbard on his left thigh,
heading westward, towards the coast,
since his first memories were of the seaside...
would he find a clue there?
However, he had still a bit to get to the North coast
when one day everything dawned for him:
his surname, and how he, for so short time a man,
would become a boy once more.
Or maybe even not a boy, but a non-human thing...
The pool had been hewn out by glaciers
long time ago, surely during the Long Night.
It shimmered like a sheet of steel,
its icy coverlet cracked at some points,
surrounded by heather in autumn bloom,
like an ocean of purple buds...
Hither the young man, thinking to rest,
was instantly drawn one equally clear day,
enticed to refresh his throat and his face,
reeling, and drenched with perspiration:
drinking as deeply as he quaffed life itself,
enjoying the cold shock
in his throat, on his face, upon his sleeves...
resting his weary limbs on the ripe heather,
just resting like that, on his own,
when she came, a maiden as tall and dark,
clad in what looked like a black one-piece suit,
taking bold strides towards the frightened young man...
In the horizon, a black flag fluttered
from a half-crumbled holdfast;
she came closer, winking a wistful eye
as black as darkest midnight,
and her features were just like his own.
Though her hair was cut short, just like a boy's,
one could tell by her ripe bosom and lean waist
that it was a she;
and lean, and tall, and sharp of features was she.
And, closing in, as she came to drink herself,
she called him by his name...
"Theon! Is that really you?"
Though he could not remember her,
still she seemed familiar,
winking an eye with that same witty smile...
She said she could use some glad company;
after all... Esgred... Estrid... she gave an ironborn name,
as they now stood face to face...
he clasped her in his arms, yet, as she bent for a kiss,
his face retreated awkwardly;
it didn't seem quite right.
"L-leave m-me al-lone!" he stammered, wavering
for the first time in a short life.
The ironborn maiden said,
in response, chortling slightly:
"Theon... how dare you... what happened to you
when those landlubbers came?
Don't tell me they raised you as their own,
you pansy, you fool of a pansy!
Look at the heir of the Iron Islands...
So costly dressed as a princess bride!
No surprise that the brother shuns his sister like this...
Wonder what your parents, our parents, will have to say!"
And Theon just stood speechless.
So he was not an orphan after all,
yet perchance it would have been better
than having one's parents alive, yet unforgiving...
She resumed her tirade, her fingertips
latched onto his shoulders like sucker cups,
and her arms, like a cephalopod's, tying up his slender waist:
"Besides, don't tell me you do not remember;
my name's not Esgred, or Estrid...
there was this little girl called Asha-Yara...
Asha-Yara Greyjoy,
and yes, that's your surname, you pansy!"
No reply.
He was in such a state of shock...
That little girl, on those cliffs, whom their real mother, Alannys, tore away
into the keep as the enemy marched through the village...
that little girl who looked just like he did...
and five-year-old Theon left behind, all alone, in the crossfire...
Recalling those first memories...
and his whole world falling apart.
No longer a Stark, yet neither raised
for being an ironborn,
one of the wicked enemies across enemy lines,
whether at home on Pyke or at home at Winterfell.
So he ran away,
pursued by his sister and the men she led,
hardy seamen with hearts as hard as their axe-blades...
In comparison, he was but a stripling,
supple, brittle, clad in brocade,
yet sharing their same features and the same blood...
part of both households, and yet of neither one...
Right when he could no longer breathe at all,
at the twilight of the last day,
as they closed in, someone waved, beckoning,
into the darkness under ground;
he had no choice but to follow,
no matter how dreadful the fate
that within the Dreadfort did await.
Tied to a cross on all four of his limbs,
to weary to writhe for his freedom,
ere he shut downcast eyes,
the last thing he saw was the flash of a blade
careening towards the excess between his legs.
A short, sharp shock.
He would not awaken within days,
and, when he did, he would realise
that his wish had come true for better or worse:
that he was no longer Theon Greyjoy, neither Theon the waif,
not even a man anymore.


...Atropa belladonna
For Lidia Lucía Franco (Lidia de Tinta)
The berries were cherry-sized, shiny black as midnights,
standing out against a platter as white and round
as the full moon.
Still, Sansa, as she put the first one to her lips,
had already forgotten the name of that fruit,
the fruit of the fair ruthless lady,
whose scientific name, if translated into French,
would yield "la belle dame sans merci".
The strong sharp flavour made her wince,
and so down her throat that capsule of darkness
plunged effortlessly,
followed by a second, a third, a fourth.
How long had she been kept at the Dreadfort,
the scene of her childhood nightmares,
ever since the dark rider in a face-concealing cloak
had uprooted her like a rosebush
as she picked daffodils during a pause, en route for King's Landing?
Here, the windows were narrow and draped in black,
leaving only the thinnest threads of light within,
and rendering the thought of day and night impossible.
In he came, her captor, the Bolton boy --not yet a man,
no matter how serious his pastimes,
though he had never flayed her alive,
but rather taken her into his bedchamber every night
right from the dungeons
and fed her some of those midnight berries
that made her heart race out of her chest,
her eyes fill with tears,
her speech become slurred and her limbs falter,
as if she were drunk.
And, little by little, the things she knew,
her parents, her friends, her dreams,
even Arya when she got annoying,
faded away into oblivion,
as she saw her dreams become reality,
dire holdfast walls turned to grand palace halls
full of high officers and court ladies,
and Ramsay as a prince... no, maybe a boy-king
in full regalia, showering her with attention
in that ostentatious ballroom,
and in a canopy bed with drawn silk curtains.
Though nought of this was real except within the mind's eye
of the drugged, entranced maiden.
Not even the Stranger knows
what had watered those bushes...
She was his sole content and respite
after all the sorrows he'd been through,
all the rage he needed to free,
lashing at others with the same thorns
that once at his heart had torn...
Though others were his playthings, she was not...
Queen of the Dreadfort, at a court of flogged
maids and eunuchs, where the light dares not
enter; a bride half-dead and half alive,
pale, pining away, yet full of elation.
Would she run out into the light
and shy away from her captor
if she ever found out the truth?


...pitch-and-toss
Her whole frame tensed like springs under pressure,
awaiting the starting gun,
ready to spring up at once at the gunshot
that could come any second;
she would only settle for gold.
A blaze of fiery curls tied into a queue,
then upwards into a half-topknot,
glittered in the summer sun
like a fire in the nighttime;
every ligament, every vein in her freckled limbs,
in both her arms and her legs, as if chiselled,
throbbing with tension... her face already so flustered
that the intense flush of excitement made the freckles vanish...
Looking over her shoulder, just for an instant,
she caught a glimpse of her opponent,
that raven-haired and pale young man, with that
fine moustache, his own messy curls done in a queue,
seeming to pierce her, to sound her, with those steel-gray eyes...
Looking down again, she shut her eyes
and concentrated on the crowd of supporters:
"Y-GRITTE! Y-GRITTE! Y-GRITTE!"
her name was being cheered to the rhythm
of her own heartbeat,
and that encouragement was usually
needless to give her wings;
but now she needed it more than ever;
yet she could also hear them calling for his sake:
"JON SNOW! JON SNOW! JON SNOW!"
Could this be the day that made her or unmade her;
her Waterloo, Poltava, or something like that?
Ygritte felt at least the stabbing gut feeling
of her first defeat,
yet she coldly shook it off.
After all, was she running away
from commitment as usual?
In that case, it was a flight forwards
(ironic as the expression might seem),
reinforcing her own independence,
not to lose her own self to another,
and celebrating that she'd left them behind
--the only female who competed in those races,
and for a good reason:
other girls had always been out of her league,
their strides too short, their hearts not as hot-blooded
as Ygritte's own.

THE QUEEN BEYOND THE WALL

THE QUEEN BEYOND THE WALL

A Tale in Seven Stories

The sun resounds, like she's done ever,

in the great concert of the spheres,

and she completes her fulfilled journey 

amidst loud thunderclap and cheers.

She gives strength to the failing angels,

though they can't sound her core or may.

The undescriptibly high opus

remains sublime, like the first day.

Story the First: Of the Night's Queen and the Maesters' Looking-Glass

This story is framed as a tale told by Septa Roelle to Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth one stormy evening at Evenfall Hall, the harsh yet beautiful ivy-grown keep on the western coast of the Sapphire Isle of Tarth.
It takes place centuries before the start of our story.
"Now listen, dear children! Let the story begin, for when we get to the end we shall know much more than what we already know..."
"I hope this is a war story rather than a romance", a lovely green-eyed boy tells the septa.
"There will surely be great battles to be told. Don't worry", a younger yet taller blue-eyed girl replies.
"One day, the then second son of the great Northern House Stark, a fearless warrior who had risen up the ranks of the Night's Watch to the rank of Lord Commander (he was the thirteenth Lord Commander in the history of the unit), went on a recon mission beyond the great Wall of ice that protects our world... to find, in the Haunted Forest, a strange lady of stunning beauty, with silver hair and ice-blue eyes ("skin as white as the moon, cold as ice, and eyes like cold blue stars"). She was a female White Walker, who lured him deeper into the woods, into an ice cave, and then she took his soul. When the Lord Commander returned to the Nightfort, he enchanted all of his subordinates, binding them to his will.
And thus, they ruled from the fort as Night's King and Queen, committing human sacrifices, mostly of women and children, no matter if they were Winterfellian Northerners from south of the Wall or free, roaming wildlings.
The leader of the wildlings and the Northern King of House Stark (the older brother of the Night's King), forsaking their differences, joined forces and rallied the brave youths of the Northern lands to meet the royals in open battle. The Night's King fell on the battlefield, and his consort was fatally wounded by her brother-in-law. The most widespread version of the story says that she died. But she actually survived and retreated up north to her ice cave in a glacier. And surely, she is still alive.
Later on, all of the wisest maesters in Westeros gathered in a Conclave in Oldtown, where they had been educated, to discuss the end of a long winter. Together, they crafted a powerful magic mirror, which they planned to take north of the Wall. This mirror could only reflect reality as it was, devoid of deception, and they planned to give it to the 22nd Lord Commander of the Night's Watch as a valuable tool: for such a looking-glass that reflected a sickening grin instead of an "honest" smile would surely reveal what the Walkers were and are at heart. At the Wall, after a year-long and perilous journey, the maesters were attacked by White Walkers, and, since dragonsteel, dragonbone, and dragonglass hadn't been discovered yet, the learned men were overpowered, the mirror was shattered by the Queen in the heat of battle, and the shards were sent flying in all directions, scattered all over and around Westeros. The tiniest of them are still whirring about, causing a chaos the maesters of yore hadn't expected at all, because these slivers of enchanted glass, so small that they can barely be seen, can enter human bodies through their lips, their nostrils, their eyes... and subsequently lodge in the warm, throbbing hearts of those people, turning those hearts cold as ice and hard as steel."
The flaxen-haired girl doesn't shudder, neither does the golden-haired boy, who shouts in defiance:
"That would never happen to me!".
But, like all humans, he may turn out to be actually wrong...
For there is at least one shard of the maesters' looking-glass whirring around in the cool air of Tarth, searching for a heart to harden. And now, readers, you shall find out what is to happen next...


Story the Second: A Young Heir and a Young Maiden

There is a sapphire in the middle of Shipbreaker Bay, a lovely isle with fresh azure waters within and salty azure waters without. Rainbows form where the springs and streams fall from the heights onto lower ground, and these many sources of freshwater, like the lakes that are perfectly clear liquid looking-glasses in the meadows and heathlands, are the tears that the Maiden herself once wept for Ser Galladon, a dashing mortal knight from the once barren island of Tarth and the only lover she ever knew, or so Stormlanders still believe in our days. 
It's a pleasant and modest spot, rising from the azure tides of Shipbreaker Bay, on the Stormland coast of the vast and diverse continent of Westeros. Tarth itself is not densely populated, a harsh yet beautiful island of brave and honest people ruled by the Tarths of Evenfall Hall, a middling noble family now dwindled to a widowed lord of middling rank and his only daughter.
At Evenfall Hall, a lonely and tomboyish child Brienne (having lost her mother and siblings) is excited about the prospect of a visitor mentioned in a letter sent by carrier raven all the way from Casterly Rock in the Westerlands: for Lord Tywin Lannister himself, the most powerful and wealthiest man in all Westeros, has sent his eldest son to be squired at Evenfall (omitting the real reason, id est, Jaime's more than innocent sharing of bed with his twin sister). When the young Lannister lands, an elated girl with short hair fairer than his and freckled cheeks, taller than any girl he has ever seen before, has already sauntered before her stalwart father to welcome the dashing, golden-haired, green-eyed Jaime, and to introduce herself. The people of the village below the Hall are modest, they do put up a celebration but not a grand one in honour of the Lannister boy, and he gets to live at Evenfall with the Tarths. The septa, Roelle, is losing her patience with Brienne's needlework, and Lord Selwyn, called the Evenstar, finally convinces her to let him raise his only daughter as a male heir.
Jaime has got issues of his own: with the letters dancing and scrambling before his eyes, he finds it hard to read and write. However, with enough love and patience (especially with encouragement from his new-found friend Brienne), he soon overcomes this hurdle, little by little, though not taking a liking to reading, preferring more active pursuits.
Soon, Lord Tywin's heir has nearly forgotten his siblings, and sees Cersei as a sister once more, because of the freckled, blue-eyed girl. Though they aren't brother and sister, Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth bond to love each other as if they were, by sharing experiences (both have lost their mothers, both like stories and sword fighting).
Jaime and Brienne explore the sights of the Sapphire Isle together, learn to swim and to fight together, help each other with their homework, get into scrapes, play games like monsters-and-maidens, listen to Roelle's stories together at night, and even Selwyn Tarth, a hot-headed yet merry bear of a veteran warrior, opens up to Jaime and lets him spar with Brienne.
And he always loses to his good friend.
It is during such a fight with wooden swords that it happens. Their childhood days are full of love and innocence, so who could say that they are finite after all? Running across meadows rife with wildflowers, bathing and drinking in waterfalls to cool themselves after sparring, wooden swords held in their little hands, the bright summer sun beating upon their fair hair, both children cannot be happier. For a while, they stop by a waterfall spring, as the tankard is soon detached from the blue-eyed girl's belt and both lindenwood shortswords are quickly pulled from their scabbards.
Right when he's determined not to lower his guard or waver, the blond boy gets what appears to be an eyelash or a speck of dust in his left eye. Brienne casts off her sword, worried, and then Jaime gets up, calming her with the words that he's all right, though he's visibly heated up by the sun above and by the struggle of the swordfight against a worthy opponent; and, having wiped the perspiration from his brow, plunging his face and both arms down to his elbows into the pool to fill the tankard, then drinking his fill of cool spring water, eagerly at a deep draught, to quench his thirst... but then, he feels a searing, stabbing pain in his chest, like a heart attack. Clutching the left side of his chest and reeling, he complains about feeling stabbed in the heart with an icicle before collapsing unconscious, breathing heavily; already seeming to struggle against impending death.
A surprised Brienne loosens his doublet while Jaime is unconscious, and she calls for the Maester of Evenfall Hall... but scarcely has she run away to look for help that young Lannister is feeling fine again, as if nothing had ever happened, but his eyes have lost their sparkle, and his voice has become cold and emotionless, as sharp and as piercing as an icicle or a freshly-quenched Valyrian sword. Jaime tells Brienne not to worry, that he is fine, he calls Brienne a freak, and he laughs at her unkempt hair and freckles, even coldly saying that a Lannister should never lose to a girl, nor to a freak. She doesn't understand why he has changed that much for worse. And then, defiantly laughing, he saunters on his own towards the Hall, leaving a puzzled Brienne to lag after him.
A tiny shard of that magic mirror mentioned in the legends (remember the maesters' looking-glass?), which fell by chance into that tankard right before it was drained, and which the golden-haired lordling has drunk without knowing it, has entered the Lannister lad's heart, and it's now frozen through and through, like a lump of ice encased in steel.
He doesn't want to play games or listen to Roelle's tales anymore, he'd rather impersonate the old septa by mimicking her voice and gestures, doing the same with the maester, with his guardian Lord Tarth, even with Brienne herself. And he refuses to go out exploring with her, though she'd love to go out with him. He’d rather stay at Evenfall and train himself in the arts of war.
Everyone is surprised by Jaime's change of heart, yet unaware of its cause.
The next time they spar, Jaime wants to fight with a blade of sharp steel instead of his usual wooden sword. And, when he's told that he's too young to wield steel, he physically assaults his guardian, being nevertheless overpowered by Selwyn Tarth and punished with spending the afternoon locked in an empty room without any distractions or the company of Brienne. Yet little Golden-Hair enjoys this scenario.
His voice and the look in his green eyes have also become different; they are now far sharper, even piercing, so conceited and arrogant is he. The few times he gets close to the Maid, the Lannister scion draws steel and stands in awe of his reflection on a blade or breastplate, and tells her as coldly as he can, giving her a death glare and putting the blade to her throat, a hair's breadth from the skin:
"Look at yourself and then look at me... your looks are not that interesting, except if you appeared on stage in a mummer show. While I am a Lannister myself. And a Lannister is flawless."
As time goes by, Jaime gradually distances himself more and more from others, becoming more warlike and defiant for each year, changing his habits to drinking summer wine, and becoming able to wield steel in a ruthless manner, yet Brienne remains hopeful that he'll change for the better. Until both children come of age, and Jaime has become one of the best-looking young men in Westeros, and Brienne, an impressively tall short-haired tomboy, broad-shouldered, with a contralto voice and a soldier's rough hands. Then, another raven comes flying all the way from Casterly Rock: Lannister Senior wants his heir back. Brienne and the others at Evenfall Hall follow Jaime to the docks to take leave of him, but the youth doesn't look back except to cast a piercing glare at all of them, without uttering a single word.
At Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister, a tall and slender, strait-laced statesman with a manly baritone to match, informs his children of their plans: Jaime will stay at Casterly Rock and Cersei will head for King's Landing to find a suitable bridegroom. Yet the young heir feels brimming with wanderlust and desire to fight, and he wants to stay by Cersei's side. And he won't give up. Upon confronting his own father and expressing what he feels for his twin sister, Jaime feels a little painful twinge in his heart. The coat of ice has warmed a bit and a crack has been made in it.
So Tywin finally gives in, accepting his son's proposal to escort Cersei to the capital. En route to King's Landing, three days later, the bridal entourage comes across a troupe of mummers (itinerant performers) carrying a maiden, the most beautiful one he has ever seen, in an iron cage of the kind used to transport dangerous prisoners. Her hair is like spun silver, her skin as white as the moon, cold as ice, and her eyes like cold blue stars. She looks at Jaime with those wistful blue eyes, and the crack in his heart deepens due to the compassion that he's feeling for her.
That night, Jaime leaves the campfire that the Lannister entourage and the mummers are sharing, to free the lovely maiden in the iron cage, which is but an illusion meant to encourage him to draw close to her. 
As soon as he's broken the lock with his blade and set her free, the Night's Queen steals a kiss from his lips. He is scared, yet in awe, entranced. Her kiss makes the youth feel cold in his steel breastplate, so cold and numb, so cold it burns, and with that searing pain in his chest once more, like a draught of fire stealing through every pipe of his lungs... and thus, he falls unconscious in her arms and fears he is going to die, as the blood freezes in his veins... Then, Jaime comes to his senses, no longer feeling anything or caring for anything, and his now open eyes have changed from their usual mint green colour to her eerie shade of blue, shining bright like stars, and his skin has turned as strangely pale as the Queen's. Her kiss has erased all the remembrance of his past life, both of Casterly Rock and Evenfall Hall, both of Brienne and Cersei, and that same kiss has shut the crack in his frozen heart, reinforcing the ice in his chest and quenching the flames of every feeling within. 
The Night's Queen laughed as the golden knight kissed her hand, a painfully delicate sound like shattering glass. It was the same sound that frozen lakes make before they crack and drown the travellers who endeavour to cross them. The icy temperature of her skin surprised Jaime; burying under his own skin, invisible tendrils wrapping around his slowly freezing heart, trying to squeeze the life out of him. But after a moment his breathing returned to normal and the cold around him did not seem so unpleasant.

"May I have your name, good Ser?" the Night's Queen just asked softly, "For I have only ventured South in search of brave warriors, knights noble and true, to serve as part of my Queensguard. Could it be that I am addressing such a man?"

Jaime's heart has skipped a beat as the magic mirror began to relish the cold, pushing pride and vanity to the surface. "Ser Jaime Lannister, Your Grace. The youngest knight ever to be admitted into the guard."

The Queen widened her pale blue eyes, a slow smile carrying across her beautiful face. "You must have done something very gallant indeed to be granted that accolade."

With the mirror clouding his heart and mind, Jaime did not realise how all the important decisions in his life had been made by someone else, instead replying with a wry lopsided smile, "That's what I've been told, Your Grace."
She laughs again, stepping close enough to reward his courage with a kiss to his cheek. For any other monarch, the touch would have screamed of impropriety but, as her lips pressed against his skin, Jaime cannot think why such a gift should not be freely given.
 "I think I will make you my Lord Commander", the Queen whispers as if to herself, encouraging a spellbound Jaime closer. 
The Night's Queen wraps Jaime up in her white cloak and takes to the sky with the blond youth, now turned a living wight, flying up north, towards the Wall and beyond. Now that his mind is left a blank slate, something stirs within him at the sight of this white-haired yet youthful regal presence; in his opinion, has he never seen such a lovely or such a clever face: not only worthy, but even perfect for him. At night, Jaime stays awake to wonder at the changing moon and the countless stars. By daylight, he sleeps in the arms of the Night's Queen, leaning against a well-shaped chest where no heart will ever throb.


Story the Third: The Heretic Burnings of the Priestess Endowed with Powers

At Evenfall Hall, everyone misses Jaime, but Brienne is the one who misses him the most. No ravens from King's Landing or Casterly Rock alight on Tarth for a year, and the Maid misses her friend, still harbouring the hope that he may be still alive.
One year after Jaime's departure, they finally get a message from the Lannisters' residence. Lord Tywin and his daughter haven't had any news of Jaime either, and the Tarths are blamed for the young heir's disappearance.
Upon learning this, Brienne, determined to prove her family's innocence and rescue Jaime, decides to depart in search of the young Lannister. Convincing her father is not hard: she gets a sailboat with a good captain, a good sword, and provisions... and then, convinced that she shall find the green-eyed scion one day, she sets sail for the mainland.
When they are a stone throw away from Storm's End, the fortress on the cape that stands opposite Tarth, Brienne sees a war camp full of soldiers before the fortress, and several poles driven into the ground on the outskirts of said camp. Upon landing as the sun sets in warm colours behind Storm's End, she notices that the banners of the camp are yellow and adorned with flaming hearts... and that there are women and children in modest Stormland dress tied to the stakes.
As soon as she has landed, she is arrested by soldiers with flaming hearts on their breastplates, who take her, unarmed and hand-tied, to the presence of their king.
As the evening sky darkens, the warrior maiden is brought into the headquarters. His breastplated chest adorned with a flaming heart as well, the stern and slender ruler, clean shaven and with short dark hair, his features hard as if they were chiseled on a cliff, looks at her with cold, piercing eyes blue as steel... and then, he coolly asks Brienne:
"Do you acknowledge the Lord of Light as the one and only true God?"
"The Lord of Light? And should that perchance be you?"
"Heretic... Guards, take him to the stake", King Stannis (who thinks Brienne is a young man) coldly commands, as the red-eyed lady with flowing red hair and a gown the colour of freshly-shed blood, with fire in her eyes, the ruby on her choker glowing like an ember, draws closer to the modest camp chair that serves as the invading leader's throne.
Soon, Brienne is tied to one of the empty stakes with thick ropes. The changing of the guard occurs a couple of times, as the former guards leave for the encampment and return with firewood, which they pile at the foot of each stake. She is determined to escape the blazing fate that awaits her at the stake.
Tied next to Brienne is a cute-looking young boy with raven hair. To break the ice, they have some conversation. His name is Edric Storm and he is currently orphaned. He tells Brienne that all the people tied to the stakes will be burned and executed because they still believe in the Seven Gods and refuse to convert to the faith of invading King Stannis Baratheon, whose priestess and mistress is the Lady in Red.
Evening turns into night and more soldiers arrive at the stakes, carrying flaming torches and candles. Their bright flames flicker in the dark of night. Among them are two riders, hard King Stannis and the Red Lady with fire and passion in her eyes, looking wistfully at her liege lord, whose firm right hand wields a red and glowing flaming sword, then at the people tied to the stakes.
A couple of gestures, and then the soldiers light the firewood before the stakes, as the Red Lady chants in some unknown language, then calls upon the greatness and goodness of the Lord of Light:
"R'hllor, R'hllor, R'hllor, R'hllor... Please deliver us, for the night is dark and full of terrors!"
Trying as hard as she can to break free, Brienne finally manages to loose and untie the ropes around her wrists. Then, she frees Edric and as many people as she can, and she retrieves her sword to cut more ropes, before running away into the woods with the liberated prisoners. When the guards have got lost in the woodlands and the flames of the execution ground have become a distant glow, all the people the maiden has saved thank her.
Then, upon leaving the woods for open fields and roads, they part ways. Most of the freed Stormlanders are heading for the capital, while Edric is expecting a welcome at Highgarden. Brienne has told the boy her story and he has replied:
"A dashing young knight, clean shaven, with golden hair and green eyes? Well, maybe I know him."
The Maid hopes that Edric is actually referring to Jaime. So, she and Edric agree to travel into the Reach together. Curious to visit another country, but also to reunite with her friend, our heroine is now sure that her adventure has not come to an end.


Story the Fourth: The King and Queen of the Reach

"A dashing young knight, clean shaven, with golden hair and green eyes? Well, maybe I know him."
Brienne is now sure that Edric is actually referring to Jaime.
"Though he seems rather fond of His Grace King Renly. Maybe he's forgotten you..."
The Maid is somewhat surprised and asks her new friend, by a campfire in the woods, more about Edric's liege lord and the way his path came to cross with the one she thinks is Jaime. And the boy answers:
"Well, he was Lord Renly from the start, a Baratheon of Storm's End, the youngest brother out of three whose parents died in a shipwreck before his third birthday... When he was still a child, both his older brothers went away (one to the capital, the other to Dragonstone) and left him alone at Storm's End, as an only child. So he grew up from an adorable child into a dashing young gentleman, slightly spoiled by his guardians, but nevertheless sweet and cheerful. Renly loves dressing up and being the centre of attention. That's how he's always been. I know him so well because we were raised at Storm's End together, like you and that fair warrior of yours."
"What a coincidence!"
"So he's now in his twenties, and weary of his lordship duties, so, to distract himself, he begins to daydream until he thinks he'll style himself king of the Stormlands. And the bannermen agree, and they tell him he must have a queen, and thus, a proclamation to find one is announced. From Bronzegate to Nightsong, the finest ladies in the land enter Storm's End to try to win his heart, but he looks at them with that fixed expression, with a glare sharper than steel and a sneer of discontent, and without saying anything... and their courage forsook them. They couldn't think of anything to say, and just repeated the last words he had uttered, which he did not particularly love or even care to hear again. Of course he hoped for something else! For he seems not to care for them at all, sending them away one by one with a graceful flick of the wrist. The suitors have to turn back in shame, some of them even in tears. It was as if they had drunk milk of the poppy, which made them doze off, and they did not recover themselves until they breathed in the cool breeze out of doors. So, about twelve days later comes this young man from the Reach, a clean shaven lad with long golden hair and bright green eyes, wearing a glittering breastplate, with a good sword by his side."
"Jaime! Sure he is!"
Well... There he stands, this dashing fair-haired youth, the Warrior incarnate, before my Liege on his throne of golden antlers... talking to him without bending the knee, as if they were brothers, to everyone's surprise, and both of them had a rather pleasant, lively conversation, which I couldn't hear properly for all the distance and the courtiers' whispers; but as far as they could see, they gave the feeling that they were taken with the wit of one another. They're both drawing all attention, the newcomer is cheerful, friendly, and clever, and it's crystal clear that His Grace finds the unknown knight after his taste, while the golden-haired stripling has found Renly charming."
"And they've both gone to the Reach?"
"To Highgarden, apparently, for reasons I haven't been told. Secrets of state. Most likely to tie the knot with a sister of his... And, while my Liege was away, comes this invasion and all these burnings... We've got to warn King Renly and his bannermen. By now, it seems that the wedding celebrations are still going on."
"Jaime's got a sister! And he would never get boring to listen to. Sure, it can't be no other... So, we're off to Highgarden?"
"You'd better keep your armour clean, or else the guards won't let you into the palace. For you're so modest that you won't impress the court with those looks of yours."
"If I do something worth notice there?"
"As long as you do something courteous and beautiful. Like dance, or speak well."
"Guess I'll try to do my best..."
Brienne has always longed to visit the Reach, for it is the land where many of her childhood tales take place. A place more fertile and lovelier than the Hall where she was born, the Reach, in her mind, makes Tarth and Storm's End look bleak in comparison.
The trek across Westeros is spent rather merrily, catching hares and freshwater fish, telling stories and each other's lives... getting, now and then, a steed at an inn or their armour and weapons polished. And soon, the Reach stretches before the fair maiden and the dark-haired boy, as far as they can see, in all its glory: a lovely hilly region with terraced vineyards on the banks of the blue Mander, shady linden groves, quaint villages... Vast orchards of peaches, fire plums and other fruits, fragrant meadows dotted with thousands of colourful wildflowers, fields of corn and of Reach roses as far as the eyes can see, like oceans of gold... Estates and large farmhouses, and bannermens' castles straight out of fairytales, surrounded by colourful gardens, crown some of the hills. The villages and marketplaces are hosting celebrations, with bustling fairs, due to the fact that the young Queen of the land is getting married. But nowhere, as Brienne and Edric hear, will the festivities be as impressive as at the royals' seat itself, where a tourney will be held.
Following the course of the lovely blue river, that artery of the Reach which still is called the Mander, the two young people remain impressed by all the sights they encounter. The Maid has grown impatient, she can't wait to see Jaime... it sure must be him, with that soft golden hair and those bright green eyes. And the idea of seeing each other again in such a beautiful backdrop would be grand indeed.
Then, after a week or two of travelling through the fertile Reach, Brienne and Edric notice from afar, at a riverbend, a soft hill crowned by the stateliest castle they have so far seen in their short lives, surrounded by open meadows and fields of golden roses, on which the lists for the tourney rise as a colourful encampment. On top of the hill, slender white towers line walls as white as cream. On the slopes of the hill, in between the wall at the foothills and the one at the top, grows a complicated hedge maze of sweet briar roses.
Now Brienne, as she approaches Highgarden, has made up her mind to take part in the wedding tournament, both to show the courtiers her skill as a fighter and to get closer to the one she thinks is Jaime. She reaches the lists by mid-day, and the guards posted there inform her that the bride and groom are still in the sept, and that the tourney will not begin until the wedding has come to an end. There will be a great feast at Highgarden, most probably in the castle gardens, after the tourney, and all of the knights who fight in the tourney will be invited. And thus, Brienne enters the lists with Edric for a squire. For the officer in charge of the lists, having Stormlanders who represent the bridegroom's birthplace in the tournament will give more local colour to the show.
Since the young Stormlander is also impatient to see his liege lord again, they decide not to wait until King Renly arrives with his Queen and her brother, but rather to enter Highgarden and surprise them at the sept door.
Which turns out to be easier said than done: the guards at the outer wall gate let them in upon hearing that they are a knight and squire at the tourney (they're also elated at the fact that the newcomers are Stormlanders), but trying to navigate the Highgarden briar maze without a map proves pretty hard for Brienne and Edric. In fact, after having walked for a long while, they realize that they have been walking around in circles, and thus, they can't get in or out. How will they ever get to fight in the tourney or see their loved ones?
Right when the Maid and her friend are beginning to despair, they suddenly hear the peal of wedding bells from the sept, and the shrill notes of a fanfare. "We're saved!", they think. Finally, they will be able to escape and give the royals their surprise!
And then, seconds later, a grand entourage in green and gold, turning left at the corner, appears before their eyes and crosses their paths: a dashing young man in a shining breastplate, with a crown of golden antlers (or branches?) on his long raven locks, a beautiful maiden in a white bridal gown, with a crown of golden Reach roses on her long auburn tresses, to the left of him, and a young blond knight to the right of him.
"Renly!", Edric calls the royal bridegroom as they advance towards the entourage. "Jaime!", Brienne calls the name of the one she's been looking for as loud as she can. "My fair warrior!"
The royal procession comes closer... the knight next to the clean-shaven King is not Jaime! Indeed, the young man's hair is curly and a darker shade of blond, like older gold, while his eyes are more of a hazel colour. His armour is inlaid with gilt flowers.
"He's not Jaime... he does resemble Jaime to a certain point... but, anyway, he's young and dashing..." Brienne staggers and all she sees is clouded, then, utter darkness. Yet she can still hear voices in her unconscious state:
"Edric? Is that really you? Have you come all the way from Storm's End?"
The soldier with the gold flowers on his armour said, "There's a young man lying on the grass... Is he...?"
"No, in fact, my knight Brienne is still alive."
"Have you come to take part in the tourney? Let's loosen that breastplate a little. Loras, go to the nearest fountain and get a ewer full of water. We don't want any warriors to fight in disadvantage."
As King Renly Baratheon loosens the modest breastplate on the unconscious form's chest, he realizes that Brienne is not a young man at all.
"But... he is a..."
"What is she doing here?", Queen Margaery asks curiously.
In the meantime, the vaguely Jaime-like Ser Loras has returned with a golden pitcher full of water. Though he doesn't need to: Brienne has already come to. And she is as surprised as everyone around her is.
"All right, let's be honest, Your Grace. I am a young woman, but I'm not a lady."
And then, Brienne tells her whole story: her now distant childhood on Tarth, her relationship with Jaime Lannister, how he grew cold and disappeared, how she found Storm's End under siege and Edric at the stake... how she saved all of those innocents, and how she believed that the knight next to His Grace was her long lost friend. With twinkles in his wistful blue eyes, her liege lord replies:
"This is Ser Loras Tyrell, Knight of Flowers, my lady's brother and the Lord Commander of our Kingsguard. It pleases me to find fellow Stormlanders here, and a maiden who rather would wield a longsword than a needle. You should be as brave a warrior as you are clever, for you have fooled us all!"
"I will give all my bravery, Your Grace".
"We now know each other. You may call me Renly. This is my Queen Margaery, and I have already introduced Ser Loras to you. At the tourney, you will meet the rest of the Tyrell family. Come on, Edric!"
During the tourney, Brienne throws all of the Reacher knights, including Loras's older brother Garlan, off their steeds. Finally, she even confronts the King of the Reach and the Knight of Flowers, who have, both of them, to accept defeat. Now completely victorious and cheered upon by the crowds, Brienne is given a wreath of golden Highgarden roses and crowns Renly "Queen" of Love and Beauty. Ser Loras advances towards Renly and gives him a kiss on the right cheek, as he casts a piercing glare at the lady knight.
Against a beautiful, colourful sunset, the grand wedding feast takes place in the Highgarden godswood: an earthly paradise where lindens cast their shade into white fountains, dark green ivy lines the palace walls, and flowers of every bright colour give the whole scene a lovely rainbow air. The Three Singers, the graceful triplet weirwoods, entwine their branches and reflect themselves in a tranquil pool.
The elegant tables are set in the shade of a wisteria trellis. The bridegroom is obviously in the very best of spirits, feeling that all eyes are upon him, bowing, shaking hands, and smiling left and right as, his own hand in his bride's, they sail confidently down the path, to take their place at the head of the table, where the guests are already assembled.
In between the meat pies and the peaches in honey, before the wedding cake is served, as the first stars light up the night sky and Arbour red and gold wine of the Tyrells' choice vintage flow freely from the fountains, Brienne has made the acquaintance of the rest of the Tyrell clan, at whose table she is allowed to sit, next to Ser Loras himself. There's old Queen Olenna, the clever matriarch, an elderly dowager with a rapier wit. There's her son Lord Mace, father to Loras and his siblings, a merry good gentleman who reminds Brienne of her own father, but with a broader girth. And there's Alerie, Olenna's daughter-in-law, a real learned lady, both clever and beautiful (Brienne would like to have a mother like her), who presides over her husband and children. There are these four children: Willas, a clever young man who leans on crutches -his left leg shorter than the right since that riding accident-, learned and calm, truly his mother's son; Garlan, stalwart and gallant as the Warrior himself; the dashing Loras, whose armour is inlaid with gilt flowers, a handsome lad now sitting between her and the King; and the youngest child and only daughter Margaery, with nutbrown hair and eyes, slender as a lily and fair of face as a Reach rose, now Queen of both the Stormlands and her own birthplace. And there's Garlan's lovely wife, Leonette: a red-haired and green-eyed young lady with breasts like ripe peaches, the Maiden incarnate.
Within that circle, Brienne even thinks of herself as too modest and a little out of place. The distinguished courtiers look at her as stiff and lifeless as statues of wax, and the lackeys who serve at the table snicker behind her back, but at least the Tyrells and their Stormlands in-law, especially the latter, are well-spoken and indulge in entertaining conversation with her, as the Maid of Tarth tells the story of all that she has been through, from Jaime Lannister's arrival at Evenfall to this very feast.
The wedding cake, rising above all the lemoncakes, rosecakes, baked apples, and spicy honeycakes, is seven-tiered, decked in seven different kinds of sugarspun Reach flowers, with sugarspun lifelike figurines of the bride and groom to crown it all, filled with seven different fruit and edible flower preserves. Never has Brienne tasted anything so scrumptious before. Yet Renly washes his share down with a long draught of Arbour gold, having nearly choked upon learning of the siege of Storm's End.
There were sparkles of rage in the newlywed's eyes as he thought of his beleaguered birthplace. Indeed, the reserved and stern Stannis Baratheon had never been interesting in Renly's eyes... but that shy youth has now become an inflexible warrior king, determined to claim what he believes is rightfully his. The brothers have spent decades apart... What ever happened to Stannis on Dragonstone for him to become such an oppressor? For Renly Baratheon, this change means nothing good.
When the dessert is already finished, and the supper ended with a last drink of brandy, the ball is opened by the royal bride and groom. The older Tyrells, husband and wife, dance with each other. So do Garlan and his Leonette. And so do young Edric and fair Brienne. They waltz and twirl, holding their partners by the hand and letting the ladies follow their steps, graceful as falling linden leaves. Though one couple stands aside from all the others: the Maid of Tarth firmly leads Edric Storm as they dance, and he follows her steps.
When the first dance is over, couples are exchanged: Loras, whose armour is inlaid with gilt flowers, now dances with his sister, Leonette with her father-in-law, Edric with tall Alerie, and King Renly himself leads Brienne out to dance. The maiden's cheeks blush scarlet like ripe strawberries, so much that her freckles disappear, and she lets herself be led for once: he looks at her wistfully, and the blue eyes of both sparkle brightly. Never since Jaime left Tarth has she felt this helpless. "Can this really be love?", the blond maiden whispers to herself.
As the sound of dancing and the spiraling circles fill her consciousness, Renly comes out to the balcony with her, his own silk-gloved hands holding those of Brienne, clad in steel.
"How wonderful the stars are," he says to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I know your heart belongs to another," she answers; "for my own heart is another's as well. Still, I cannot thank you enough for all of your kindness and the way you have treated me!"
The nearly full moon is now in the middle of the night sky, and the Tyrells and their courtiers are once more within the keep. Renly and Loras have led Brienne through a beautiful drawing-room lined with portraits of beautiful ladies and dashing lords, then through elegant halls, each one grander than the previous (First comes a hall with a floor of white marble, hung with tapestries of crimson silk, depicting battle scenes of Reach history in bright colours. Then a hall with a floor of pink marble, hung with paintings of such size and magnificence that the Maid would ordinarily have stopped to admire them, followed in turn by a third hall, which has a floor of black and white marble laid in squares like a chessboard, and which is hung with mirrors in gilded frames), into the bedchamber wing, where the Knight of Flowers has generously offered her his own room; he will stand guard himself in the chamber of his dear sister and her dashing spouse. He has said he can do no more. The Maid cannot find the right words to thank them.
The bedchamber itself is vast and elegant, filled with the scent of freshly-picked lavender and Highgarden roses, with a canopy bed of curtains thickly embroidered with gold and silver thread, a mirror that occupies a whole panel of the walls, a wardrobe twice or thrice as large as Brienne's own at Evenfall Hall, and a costly crystal glass chandelier on the ceiling. There is also a lovely ornate dressing table.
Loras has servants dress her in a fine negligée of crimson silk, its collar and sleeves lined with fine Myrish lace, and then, he pushes the bed-curtains back for the Maid to go to bed, before affably taking leave of her.
As Brienne wraps herself in the soft mint-green brocade sheets and draws the golden velvet bed-curtains, she thinks of the kindness she has encountered at court. That night, sweet dreams come to her: she is leaving Highgarden, leaving the Reach, she comes into an open field in more northern lands, a rider gallops towards her... it is Jaime, this time, no longer cold or detached, offering her his hand, and both of them riding away past holdfasts and cots. But it is all only a dream, and thus, it fades away as soon as she awakes.
The King of the Reach himself peeps in through her bed-curtains, his attendants bringing forth an armour of cobalt blue steel, inlaid with bluebells and forget-me-nots, with a knee-long cape of the same cool colour.
So she is dressed in this blue armour, that sparkles on her reflection in the mirror that covers a whole panel of the bedroom wall.
As for Edric, he has eaten supper and then slept with the army officers, having already enlisted in the ranks of the Reach.
For breakfast, there are spiced honey cakes and various fruit pies, served with clear lager and with mint tea. The maiden now sits to the left side of Queen Margaery, and the Lord Commander to the right side of King Renly Baratheon, both royals sitting on the thrones that have presided the banquet-hall table.
They talk about the invasion of Storm's End, and Brienne learns that the invaders' leader is also a Baratheon, one of Renly's older brothers, with whom he had broken ties long time ago. The vast army of the Reach has been already trained and prepared for the upcoming conflict.
The royals offer to have a notice about Jaime's whereabouts sent throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and detachments to carry on the inquiry Westeros-wide while the rest of the army is fighting the war.
Renly offers Brienne to enlist in his ranks and join them at the war front, where she could perform gallant feats, but she only asks for a horse, new weapons, and provisions to carry on her search for Jaime.
And thus, at the entrance of the briar maze, right before she crosses the garden gate, she beholds a white gelding, caparisoned in cobalt steel as well, with a green silk saddlecloth, on which the embroidered golden rose of Tyrell and stag of Baratheon shine brightly as stars. 

From the saddlecloth hangs a fine longsword, with a ruby-eyed golden lion head for a pommel, in a finely ornate scabbard glittering with golden lions and rubies, aside from a fine mint-green silken bag, also embroidered with the Tyrell rose, containing a glass canteen full of summer wine (the same Arbour red that was served at the wedding feast) and a dozen journey-cakes.

The rubies on the sword glitter like stars, and, when she draws steel, she sees that the blade is covered in black and scarlet ripples. Why would a Baratheon or Tyrell keep a Lannister sword, and one of costly Valyrian steel besides, in the first place?

“‘Tis a wedding gift from Lord Tywin himself,” His Grace replies to Brienne’s question. “Yet Loras and I have already got many fine swords, and besides, you are looking for the Lannisters’ missing heir, or not?”

Thanking her hosts sincerely, the Maid of Tarth fixes her new sword on her belt, having already thought of a name for it: Oathkeeper, since it will recall that she swore to find Jaime.

King Renly and Ser Loras help her get on her steed, embrace her, and wish her good luck. So do the rest of the royal family. Even Edric comes to say farewell, for he is going to war. The young bannerman looks like a child Renly in his breastplate and doublet. He has been given permission to be part of her escort, and thus, they shall have a little more time together.
"Farewell! Farewell!" say Loras and Renly, and Queen Margaery as well, drying up their tears into silken lace handkerchiefs. Looking back at Highgarden for every now and then, the maiden crosses the garden gates with the detachment she has been given for an escort. At the borders of the Reach, the other riders depart to join the army, as Brienne takes Edric in her arms and they kiss each other for maybe the last time.
"Farewell!", both say in tears, for maybe they wouldn't see each other anymore. Then, Edric departs with the rest of the riders, leaving Brienne on her own, riding up north. This is the saddest of all farewells for both of them.
Maybe Jaime has joined the Night's Watch to escape his father's expectations. So thinks Brienne now. If so, she is most likely to meet him at the icy Wall where the known world comes to an end. Surely taking the black means a celibate life married to the Watch he can never leave, but what matters to the Maid is that Jaime is safe and sound. And, after having a long talk with him about their adventures... surely the best option for her would be to turn southward away and fight under Renly's banner for a just cause; but now, finding Jaime comes first on the list.
So, she leads her steed into the Riverlands. At the first inn, she has to exchange that horse for a dun mare after having had breakfast and spent the night there, unaware that there are also scoundrels at that very tavern, and that she'd better be careful with the rarities she carries.


Story the Fifth: The Little Greenseer

The Riverlands are a wilder and more wooded region than the Reach, but nevertheless dotted with villages and keeps worth visiting. Passing by the Gods' Eye and watching the black ruins of Harrenhal mirrored in the tranquil lake against the evening twilight makes the Maid of Tarth think of the finity of greatness. How many times did she, as a child, ever hear the tale of the Ironborn king who spent his life on raising a fortress that he thought never would fall! Nowadays, the empty walls branded by dragonfire serve as a prison for the Lannisters' enemies, and a curse hangs over the fallen keep, dark and veiled by the evening fog. She encamps near the ruins on her own, in a run-down outpost of the long-gone Ironborn.
The Riverlands were once a land of war, every confluence a battlefield made immortal by history and folktale alike. Like the Reach, this is another region she long time dreamed to visit. The Trident is a wider river than the Mander, and, from a window in the Inn at the Crossroads, the Maid even sees barges sailing down the stream to Riverrun and further on towards the Bay of Crabs.
She would, next day, have gladly crossed the Trident at the Confluence Ford (which another timeline might have named the Ruby Ford), but a whim of her youthful spirit soon leads to complications for her. Instead of crossing at the Confluence Ford to follow the Kingsroad, the Maid has decided to follow the Red Fork and then cross all three of the Forks one by one at their sources. The reason why? She longs to visit Fairmarket, a quaint village and marketplace by the Blue Fork, just like any other in the Riverlands... on whose outskirts a great battle once spelled defeat and the fall of an empire for the Stormland army against an invading Ironborn host. More precisely, she wishes to ride across the battlefield of yore, now turned into a peaceful meadow for cattle pasture.
The innkeeper, Masha Heddle, a slightly overweight good woman in her forties, warns Brienne not to try that route. She gives the maiden but three words of caution, as many as the Forks that join at the confluence: "Beware the Freys". Yet Brienne has already saddled her steed and galloped away along the Red Fork: her youthful heart, in its enthusiasm, does not heed the wise advice of her elders.
Along the River Road does she ride, up to the border with the Westerlands, to cross the Red Fork at the open field where herds of Riverland Red cattle quietly graze, and the sept tower of Fairmarket rises like an only eminence. While riding across these meadows and crossing the Blue Fork, Brienne can only think of her countrymen who sleep in an eternal trance beneath covers of tall grass and modest wildflowers. Spending the night at Fairmarket Inn, she surprises the locals by revealing that she is a Stormlander. The whole community has looked at her like a local celebrity, though in a much more modest way than the courtiers of the Reach.
The next day, as she follows the course of the Green Fork, the third tributary, she can only think of the defeat that the Stormlanders faced on the battlefield, and of the downfall of her region's golden days. Perchance a Tarth ancestor is earthed in these ripe meadows, having left a widowed lady and fatherless children to mourn the fallen hero. Only the Warrior knows, and the Stranger as well.
Brienne has spent the night in the ruins of Oldstones, at the source of the Blue Fork, and, the next morning, she quenches her thirst in one of the rills, and then crosses the confluences of the many rills that join to make up this river. This day, she will have more treacherous waters to cross...
In the middle of the slightly swampy, fertile lowlands, twin keeps, with a lone tower in their midst, stretch across the Green Fork across a massive bridge of gray granite. The river, swollen with the recent rains, flows surging impetuously, so that the twin castles prove the only crossing across the rapids. Brienne has no other choice than to cross at this stone bridge. She is completely unaware of which consequences her decision may have.
To make things even worse, dark storm clouds cross the skies, concealing the sun, and a violent downpour forces Brienne to seek shelter at the twin keeps. The guards at the gate of the western one welcome her in, their blue doublets decorated with a silver crest that displays the twin keeps:
"Welcome, dear stranger, to the Twins, the seat of House Frey."
That evening, the Maid knows no words to thank the elderly Lord Frey, whose immense family she is surprised to be introduced to, for a pot of warm soup and a nice soft bed, in which she is snuggled up until way after daybreak. After having broken her fast on a few fried freshwater fish and some good ale, she takes to her steed and gallops across the granite bridge, not heeding old Lord Walder Frey's words that she should pay her toll. Indeed, she has offered them her breastplate and her canteen, but the Lord of the Crossing has also demanded Oathkeeper, and she needs her blade more than anything else to save her friend. So she's departed with all of her valuables, fending off squires in blue Frey livery, to the other side of the Green Fork and onto the Kingsroad. A small army of Frey men is still on her heels, and she cannot rest by day nor at night, always fleeing, until her mare is sinking in the swamps of the Neck, with a weary rider on her back, completely surrounded by soldiers in silver and blue.
"Now we've got you!", the leader, a scar-faced and ill-shaven sellsword, says. "Pay the price, or else, shame will fall upon..." He staggers and he falls, the middle prong of a trident-like frog spear thrust in between his shoulder blades. The other soldiers grow defiant: "You frog eaters!" The crannogmaiden who had thrust her spear into the officer's back lunges at the other Frey sellswords, as a tall and sturdy young man with a dark-haired child on his back also attacks the detachment, and a cream-coloured wolf the size of a pony bites the same soldiers, who are subsequently scared enough to retreat southward.
Then, the crannogmaiden offers the Maid of Tarth her spear to lean on and shows her out of the quicksand. The young crannogmaiden is about the same age as Brienne, but more slender and shorter, narrow-shouldered and darker of skin, with long dark brown hair. Her large green eyes sparkle with defiance.
"Reed. Meera Reed. Fear not. We shall be friends and travel together. We need a warrior like you on our side. I suppose you are a veteran knight?"
"I have fought in a tourney recently. By the way... my name's Brienne, and I come from Tarth, in the Stormlands."
"Pleased to meet you, Brienne. But first, let's introduce my fellowship, shan't we? Meet my younger brother Jojen." A crannoglad about Edric's age, dark and green-eyed like Meera, waves his hands from a treetop. "Our companions. Bran Stark of Winterfell, and Hodor. He can't say any other word."
"Hodor!", the large young man says, with a smile on his face. Now Brienne is completely sure that the little boy is Bran, as Jojen points downwards to the pony-sized wolf:
"And Summer, our pet direwolf". The Maid is impressed by the appearance of a beast of legend. "In these fens, nothing is ordinary." She had hitherto thought that direwolves did not exist, and that crannogfolk breathed underwater with gills, their hands and feet webbed like those of frogs. Now that she sees that these people have lungs and limbs just like hers, she is prepared for anything she may encounter on her quest.
"I'm sorry that your horse sank into the marsh", Jojen apologizes in a calm and kindly tone. "You can try to ride Summer instead." Not wanting to walk through the treacherous swamp like her guides do, she agrees and strokes the fur on the surprisingly friendly direwolf's warm back. Summer is, after all, a steed as trusty as any other.
The little band has now marched together until not long before sunset. They are now in the very heart of the Neck fens. Large green logs bask in the misty marsh sunshine, displaying ominous chartreuse eyes. From the swampy ground and shallow lagoons rise islands of reeds, on which villages of modest reed huts dot the now foggy landscape. The people of the little band stick together not to part ways, get lost in the fog or sink into the quicksand. The Maid of Tarth clings to Summer's fur as strongly as she can.
"Hodor!" Hodor loudly shouts.
"Our crannogs", Meera says. "Thank the gods we have make it in time! At dusk, the lizard-lions start prowling the fens for their prey... Teeth like daggers. You wouldn't like to come across one."
They are now inside a little hut on a crannog, a hut that Meera usually shares with her brother, and now with the young Stormlander as well. The crannoglad is listening to Brienne's story attentively, while his sister has ventured to the edge of the crannog to catch frogs and fish with her spear. The evening twilight filters, red and warm, through the reed walls of the thatched hut.
Brienne has told Jojen her whole story so far, and he has listened attentively, making clever remarks at every turn in spite of being an illiterate young crannoglad. This boy is more mature than Edric, in fact, he is too mature for his age. Reserved and poised Jojen reminds Brienne of a character in a tale she once heard: "a youth in appearance, yet an elder in wisdom."
Soon, Meera enters, her reed belt laden with green frogs that they will have to eat raw, in the style of crannogfolk. At first, Brienne disagrees, but watching the siblings and not wanting to starve or to be uncourteous, she finally joins in. The raw frogs taste bland, neither too good nor too bad. Then, after supper, all three prepare to lie down on their bed of reeds. Meera will sleep with her spear, standing guard should enemies attack.
"Tell me more", the crannoglad says. "About Jaime, and the Stormlands, and the other places and people you have seen".
Inside the hut it's warm and moist, and, suddenly, Jojen falls unconscious on the bed of reeds, falling suddenly asleep. Before going to bed themselves, Meera tells Brienne that her little brother is a greenseer: a person whose dreams foretell things to come, and they never fail. Ever since he came down with a lethal fever as a child, Jojen has had this strange gift.
Upon taking off her breastplate, Brienne reveals to her crannogmaiden host that she is a woman, which surprises Meera, but does not seem to faze her, since both of them are warriors.
The Maid reflects on all the strange things she has encountered this day: crannogfolk, a direwolf, a greenseer, and even Hodor. This night, she dreams of being in the Reach once more, getting married to Jaime where Renly and Margaery should be.
The next day, while breaking their fast on raw frogs speared by Meera, the young boy tells the other two who occupy the hut about the dream he had last night. In it, Brienne ventured into an ice cave during a snowstorm. The winds and sleet dashed wildly about her, until, in the end, she managed to enter and find, at the end of the cave, a golden light which was fading away, but grew stronger in her presence and enveloped her.
The Stormlander listens to Jojen attentively, since the crannoglad is giving the account of his dream in the same solemn tone that a septon would use during a religious service. She interprets the green dream as a vision of her reunion with Jaime Lannister. So it is, but the lad warns her that the task will be full of hardships.
"Anyway... hardships have I endured from Tarth to these fens!"
"We're also heading up north", Meera tells the female knight. "North of the Wall, past the outposts of the Night's Watch. We will need their aid to open the gate. So will you."
"If that should be a problem... I believe Jaime has enlisted."
"Not I", the young greenseer calmly replies. "I had a dream about three or four moon-turns ago. A dream in which a white whirlwind of snow carried a young man up in the air, above the Wall and across it. His hair was like beaten gold, and there was a golden lion on his scarlet doublet, just like your missing friend Jaime."
The Maid has never seen before so young a body with so old a head. And thus, she is fully convinced of all the things that the little greenseer says. Her golden-haired friend having gone further than the Wall...
So he is beyond the Wall, still wearing the Lannister colours... That is definitely a fate worse than taking the black! Does that mean that Jaime has become a wight? Can live people become wights, and can these become human again? How will they get past the border and into the unknown wastes? The little band comprised of a direwolf, a crippled boy and his Hodor, a Stormland knight, a crannoglad, and a crannogmaiden set off along the Kingsroad early that morning.
During a pause in the trek, the little Stark boy confirms Brienne's suspicions:
"I have seen Jaime Lannister. A good-looking yet pale and harsh young man with hair as bright as the summer sun, dressed in gold and scarlet, was soaring above my head, his face buried in the arms of the Night's Queen, as I climbed up a ruined tower of Winterfell to feed our crows some corn. Then, he pushed me off the tower wall as he, with a piercing glare and a sharp voice, said: 'The things I do for love.' Ever since, my legs cannot carry me, yet Hodor has been my way of moving, and Summer as well when I warg into him."
The freckled maiden shudders as she hears these words. Has Jaime grown so cold that he would gladly shove a child off a great height just to have some privacy? For a while, with her head buried in her hands, she thinks of that, yet her hunch that she will somehow make him regain his reason banishes such frightful news from her consciousness.
In the evening of the same day, while spending the night in the holdfast ruins of Moat Cailin, in the courtyard between the three towers, Brienne decides that she should offer her aid to the Night's Watch, having been able to pass for a young man so far during her trek across Westeros. The plan is accepted by the rest of the fellowship.
The Kingsroad now winds through the endless wastes of the North: hilly plains dotted with barrows give way to vast pinewood forests dark as night, half-frozen lakes, and harsh granite hills, in which a hamlet or a holdfast is always a welcome sight. But the Maid of Tarth and her companions most often encamp around a fire by a lake, in which Meera spears fish for supper and for breakfast. When they encamp, it's always by a lake, from which a few perches speared through the broken ice, roasted over the campfire, are better than nothing at all. The North is vast, and cold, and dire: ostensibly hostile, yet beautiful in its pristine harshness. Every day, the air gets colder, the night gets longer, and the wolfskins that Meera packed in the crannog come finally to good use, as the live wolfskin called Summer does.
Bran tells the Maid that his stepbrother is Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. She wonders what he may be like. The fellowship's trek is now growing long.
For two days, they encamp by the Long Lake, the largest one in the North. On the third, it starts to snow at dusk, and they cross a frozen river to reach the half-wooden fortress on its other shore. Here, at Last Hearth, the Umbers give the Maid and her fellows a hearty welcome, with a good warm supper the like of which Brienne had not had since she slept at the Twins.
On the very next day, the maiden, the crannogfolk, and their followers wake up and break their fast as heartily as they had had supper: with mulled wine and roast salmon. The Umbers also give them bearskins to wrap themselves in against the colder winter weather. The young people leave Last Hearth to find a calm and beautiful forest covered in deep snow. Summer gallops as fast as he can with Brienne on his back, as an Umber freerider drives the other members of the fellowship, in a large wooden sleigh, towards the Wall.
Around nightfall, Brienne and her friends can see the lights of Castle Black shining like warm stars in the distance. And, behind the outpost, they behold the great ice Wall that stretches as far as they can see, so high it can reach the sky, dyed in various warm colours by the evening twilight.


Story the Sixth: The Maester and the Lord Commander at the Far Side of the World

Castle Black is not a single edifice, but a cluster of different barracks and keeps with walls of the same black stone and darkened wood. Meera has climbed to the top of the Wall to have a good view of the other side, while Brienne has walked into the courtyard, and recruits on guard duty approach her, as the boys and Summer sneak into Castle Black and into the vaults, where they will hide and spend the night.
The recruits take Brienne for one of them and tease "him", like they are used to do to newcomers at the Wall, making fun of Brienne's blue armour among other things. She defends herself with Oathkeeper, impressing the force-recruited ruffians, and even drawing the attention of a well-dressed and dashing raven-haired young man in black furs, who has recently entered the courtyard from outside, shaking the snow off his overcoat. This young man arrives with a direwolf the size of Summer, but white as snow, with eyes red as rubies. And the pommel of his sword looks just like his direwolf's head.
He is soon interested in Brienne, wanting to have such a great fighter at his service, and he leads her into the Lord Commander's Tower. Which means that the reserved young man is the Lord Commander, Bran's older stepbrother Jon Snow.
In the tower, a visually impaired elderly man in black, wearing a maester's chain, comes across them. Brienne learns that this sage older than a century, with grey cataracted eyes, is Maester Aemon of the Night's Watch. Maester Aemon greets Jon, who insists that Brienne should sleep in his bed and keep the blue clothes on.
That evening at twilight, Meera spots, from the top of the Wall, the ruins of the Nightfort south of the Wall, and a passage through it in the kitchens of the ruined fortress. She hastens to encounter her brother and the others and make her way to the Nightfort... she gathers everyone in her fellowship except Brienne, who (as the crannogmaiden has learned from some soldiers) is staying as a guest of the Lord Commander's. Led by Night's Watch officer Benjen Stark, the Reeds, Bran, Hodor, and Summer set off for the Nightfort, in whose kitchens they spend the night, but not before sending word of their departure to Brienne, who gets to hear of it through overweight recruit Sam Tarly. She's already had her supper at the Commander's Keep: honeyed chicken, crisp and warm, washed down with mulled wine that goes down like a blessing. But Jaime's golden locks and emerald eyes are nowhere to be found among the black-clad officers of the garrison.
After supper, Jon dates Brienne to have a talk with him at his office. A large black raven with fluffy feathers flies from a perch on to the Lord Commander's shoulder, asking for corn that it eats from Jon Snow's hand: "Corn! Corn!". The white direwolf, whose name is Ghost, lays himself to rest by the office table. Brienne tells Jon her story. He is surprised that she is a young woman and that she has come from as far as Tarth. "Tarth! Tarth!", the raven croaks the name of the Sapphire Isle. And Jon admires her indeed.
The Lord Commander has taken the Maid to his keep for the privates not to do what they are most likely to do in an outpost without any women when the occasional female appears. He even tells her a story:
"There once was a young boy, the illegitimate son of a Northern lord, whose stepmother favoured her own trueborn birth children. In the end, weary of not being appreciated, he fled the keep he called home in the company of his pet direwolf and joined the Watch. At the start of his service, many of the base-born soldiers teased him for being a lordling, seeing in him nothing but an effete know-it-all. They called him Lord Snow. Only the old Lord Commander, whose steward he had become, saw him for what he was. One day, the old Lord Commander was killed in a skirmish, and the outcast youth, now come of age, who was brave and open-minded, was elected the next Lord Commander, so that he literally became Lord Snow at last."
"I'm glad that he finally was no longer teased". Brienne loves the story.
"Well..." Jon Snow replies. "That lad was me."
"Lord! Jon! Snow!", the vegan raven flaps its wings.
That night, as she is lying in bed, Jon tells her that he'll spend the night in the outpost's underground library, discussing some matters with Maester Aemon. Brienne spends the night awake, eavesdropping at the conversation, which happens to concern her quest.
AEMON: She's but a girl!
JON: She's but a girl... and she has come all the way from the Stormlands! She has made it all the way from her southron birthplace to our quarters, to the last outpost of the Crown of Westeros, and tomorrow she'll venture beyond the Wall! Why should we deny to help her? She could help us by finding a way to turn wights into humans once more... I have seen that blond wight, which matches her description, and she is convinced that she can save him! Perchance feelings can help where science has always failed.
AEMON: She's but a girl, and he's a wight! That's foolhardy!
JON: That's hardy, Aemon, hardy. Don't you understand? She's made friends with all kinds of people, she's walked through fire and ice. Royalty have bent the knee before her, and she has looked at her own death in the eyes. There's great power in her. The power of her love and of her conviction, that lies in her courage and in her noble heart. If she cannot save her wight at all, then nobody will.
RAVEN: Tarth! Love!
AEMON: You have convinced me at last. We should... how do you youngsters say? You know... Give her a try.
Now Brienne is sure that Jaime is a wight. That's the reason why she has not been able to find him among the officers in black! She had never expected such a turn for the worse. But she is not the least afraid. After so many hardships, why should she back away being so near her journey's end? She hopes that, in one way or another, she will save his life.
The next day, after having broken her fast on eggs with bacon, black pudding, and sausages in the company of the Maester and the Lord Commander, the Stormlander watches as the latter opens the gate of the Wall up north. A detachment of lordlings alone, led by the Lord Commander himself, will follow her into the Lands of Always Winter, protecting her from wildlings and direwolves. And, speaking of direwolves, Ghost will be her steed. At the gates, old Maester Aemon comes towards them, offering Brienne more furs, these ones the black ones of a Night's Watch officer, and a crude dagger of black glass, its hilt covered in modest hemp string:
"This is dragonglass, truly sharper than steel. A rare crystal from the blazing vitals of the Earth, it is a weak point of White Walkers. Just like your Valyrian steel sword, should you lose it north of the Wall. Dragonglass, however, can't stop a wight... but fire can. Wights feel no pain, and they will keep on fighting until they fall. Do you still have your sword and flintstone?"
"I have."
"If you fail, you may have to set your wight on fire."
"I will see... but I hope I don't", Brienne replied.
"You youngsters are always that hopeful. Like I said... Let's see..."
She takes her leave of the old maester, listening this time attentively to his advice. There are tears in his clouded eyes as the gate opens and everyone rides through the redoubtable wall of ice, into the uncharted wastes beyond.
Clinging to Ghost's warm white fur, she still heads northward through the ranger paths of the Haunted Forest, without even stopping, until she has left the detachment way behind her. And, suddenly, she looks up from the white fur and realizes it:
"I am lost, and on my own! But I won't give up that easily..."
There is young Brienne, all alone, in the dire and dreary frozen wasteland beyond the Wall. The night is long, the moon is full, and the vivid northern lights colour the snow in many different bright shades. Snow bears, direwolves, and mammoths may lurk behind every treetrunk and every rock. And, to make things even worse, a violent blizzard is raging.
After so much time riding on her own that she does not know for how much she has travelled, the forest gives way to the foothills of the snow-capped, granitic Frostfangs. The air is now so cold that it burns, turning her whole face bright red and making her feel numb. And the storm still rages on, more violently than before.
Suddenly, on those barren slopes, a baker's dozen of White Walkers come towards her. They look as beautiful as they look redoubtable: white-haired and white-skinned, with eyes that shine like blue stars and swords of blue crystal or ice in their hands. Their translucent blades, sharper than any steel sword, glow with an eerie blue shimmer.
Twelve of them are male, but the leader appears to be female, and a beautiful one as well.
Then, Brienne pulls her dragonglass dagger from beneath her furs, she draws Oathkeeper in her right hand and wields the crystal in her left one, and she dashes with the little strength she has left at her opponents. The black steel that she wields pierces their white skin, liquefying them one by one as they scream in an eerie tone. In the end, only the female leader is left, and she strives with all her might to protect the ice cave in the glacier behind her. A cave strangely similar to the one in Jojen's green dream.
The blizzard has finally calmed down, but young Brienne's trials are not over yet.
The Maid of Tarth now has to contend with the Night's Queen. Fire and ice, life and death, are interlocked in this single combat, out of which there can only be one survivor. She addresses Brienne in a strange language, which she merely hears as the cracking of ice, while looking with a piercing blue glare at the mortal maiden who shares her eye colour and the star-like sparkles in her eyes.
Though Brienne has already started to falter, she is still determined to fight, aware that both her own life and Jaime's are at stake. Her instinct gives her the necessary strength which she is beginning to lose.
The Maid and the Queen spar for a few seconds, the former making the latter retreat with her Valyrian steel, slashing the Queen in the right wrist, from which she bleeds water, and then, finally, thrusting the blade into the middle of her chest, causing her to liquefy into water as she fades away with a smile of pleasure on her face.
Then, suddenly, a figure rushes forward from the cave. It's a pale and gaunt young man. His hair is as yellow as gold and his doublet bears the Lannister crest, though his clothes are so worn he can barely be recognized. His eyes, like the Queen's, are piercing and shining like blue stars. His skin is as pale and cold as ice, and his lovely face is completely inexpressive. And there's a crystal sword, like those of the White Walkers, in his right hand. He appears to be in some sort of trance, but not even aware of it. He does not even recognize his childhood friend, the one he always crossed swords and explored Tarth with.
The Maid of Tarth is stunned by whom she sees, and she nearly falls unconscious. But she soon rises up again, ready to strike, convinced that he will be set free.
Finally, Brienne has found Jaime at last. But will she be able to save his life?


Story the Seventh: What Happened Beyond the Wall, and What Happened Afterwards

The crystal sword twirls in Jaime Lannister's right hand, as he advances towards Brienne, his piercing blue eyes fixed on her sparkling blue eyes. There he stands, with his fixed expression, casting doubt on all she has to say. Advancing towards her, he prepares to strike her warm flesh.
Let the waltz begin!
The two young people cross swords gracefully and quickly, as if they were waltzing.
The Maid is now at the end of her strength, yet determined to save her friend or die in the attempt. She draws steel against her unexpected oponent, but Jaime's blade breaks her own. Half her sword, the pointy end of Oathkeeper, falls on the frozen ground. Then, the crystal sword strikes her right side, sliding between her ribs, bringing the taste of blood to her lips, a taste of steel and salt at once. Her whole frame is racked with pain. For every time she breathes, the Stormlander feels the pain of the ice-cold blade piercing her chest, though the wound is not that deep. Her chest feels tight and oppressed, like tied up with a corset. And she feels how her lungs fill with blood, that gushes up her airways.
"Shall I die here, all alone, in this frozen wasteland... by the hands of the one I love?"
And then, suddenly, Jaime stops. He stands in a state of stasis, still holding his blood-tipped sword, hard and pale, his eyes firmly shut, still, rigid and emotionless like an ice statue of a great warrior. Then, Brienne draws closer. She cannot bear to set him on fire. She remembers Edric, and Renly, and the Tyrells, and the Reeds, and the Maester and the Lord Commander: all those who have been touched by her story. They were right, all of them: she had not left her birthplace for nothing. Should it all really be in vain?
"Jaime! At last I have found you! Then, why don't you see it's me before you?"
Leaving a trail of crimson liquid on the blue ice in her wake, she rushes towards him, calling his name, filled with both elation and worry, but already staggering, half-conscious with blood loss, swallowing the pain that racks her every time she breathes.
The maiden embraces the one so long sought, a form so cold that touching it burns, and she puts her blood-stained purple lips to his pale and cold white lips, as the wound in her right side touches his left side, wavering red blood warming a heart of steel encased in ice. And then, it happens... That failing life-blood starts flowing up her airways again, and, with the painful kiss of life, a few drops of blood steal through the Westerlander's parted lips, searing his throat, reaching his heart and turning it warm and soft like it was before, as the liquefied mirror shard dissolves in his bloodstream. Suddenly, he feels the taste of blood and the warmth of life coursing through his veins once more. And thus, as Jaime listens to the feverish throbbing of a familiar heart within the chest his head is leaning against, he opens his eyes, which are now bright green once more; all the past rushes back to him in a single instant, and he recognizes a certain flaxen-haired young person, with a gaping wound in her right side, standing so close to him. Those freckles, those eyes... Has he really wounded her? Where are they, and what is he doing here, in these bleak and barren wastes?
"Brienne... Dear, lovely Brienne..." His speech is slurred and his limbs falter, but his mind is at least clear.
"Jaime... Please, put some of my furs on... you're going to freeze..." Her voice is faint and she is reeling, but the maiden can't take her eyes off him at all.
"Oh... My fair warrior..." both whisper, shedding tears of joy that freeze before they reach the ground. Within the largest of the teardrops from the Lannister heir's left eye, the liquid remains of the looking-glass shard leave his weary system. And thus, many intense feelings surge at once within him: pain and cold, but also surprise and elation, dread and comfort, as he looks around him at the frozen wastelands and feels the teardrops sear his weather-beaten cheeks, clasping Brienne's waist with all the strength his weakened arms can muster, for her not to leave him alone to his certain death, as she, with equally failing strength, lays her black-gloved warrior's hands on his strong shoulders.
Then, both of them, still embracing each other, fall unconscious upon the glacier ice. Everything turns dark before their eyes. We would assume they were going to die, for they couldn't possibly be happier, but luckily the white direwolf, in the heat of the Maid's battle, had rushed forth towards the detachment. So here they come, led by Jon Snow, to find the lifeless forms of both young people still faintly breathing, lying on the ice with smiles of joy upon their faces.
When they wake up, they're both in the officers' quarters of Castle Black. For how long have they slept?
Was it all a surreal, endless dream?
Maester Aemon has been tending to Brienne's wounds, that's why she wakes up with a bandaged chest, and he is sure that a strong, healthy young person like her will soon recover. Jaime has gained a little colour on his cheeks at last, though he should better put on a little more weight before returning wherever he pleases. Brienne wants both of them to return to Tarth and live their lives in peace, and the Westerlander temporarily agrees. The trials they have endured have strengthened their bond: now he loves her for the dangers she has passed, and she loves him for having understood the reason why.
Within about a week, the Maid is fully recovered from her wounds, both those of the heart and of the flesh. Only a scar on her right side remains. In the underground library, she plans the journey in the company of her beloved Jaime, of the blind old maester, and of the bold young Lord Commander. A dark-haired girl, with large green eyes and a sharp trident on her back, has also arrived this week. It's Meera Reed, ready to return to her crannog.
The Maid of Tarth remembers the crannogmaiden, whom she thought she would never see, and they embrace, ready to share each others' experiences since they parted.
"So this lad over here is Jaime Lannister", Meera is being ironic. "A fine fellow to stray that far away. I'd like to know whether you really are worth going to the ends of the Earth for! Please, Brienne, tell me how you got him back!"
After hearing Brienne's story on how she freed Jaime, Meera is ready to share her own tale:
"Bran and Hodor, with Summer in tow, are now learning to become greenseers with a wise old seer of the Haunted Forest, north of the Wall."
"And your brother... Jojen? I'd like to see him again", the Stormland maiden still remembers the middling crannoglad with the wisdom of a maester.
"He is still weak, and lying in bed in the officers' quarters. I'm tending to him, waiting for him to awaken from his trance", Meera replies, full of worries.
Upon returning back to their quarters, they find, effectively, Jojen in bed, pale as his covers, sunken into a deep sleep. Everyone gives their best wishes to the crannogmaiden, for her brother to recover as soon as possible.
In the meantime, the route home has been already planned: along the Kingsroad through the North and Riverlands, then into the Reach, then westward into the Stormlands and then sailing from Storm's End back to Evenfall Hall on Tarth. The Maid has still got her sword, for Oathkeeper was brought with her and has been recently reforged by the one-handed smith of Castle Black, while the Westerlander has had a new sword forged for his own defence and that of his saviour.
After about a moon-turn (a month) of rest and revelations, Jaime and Brienne finally take their leave of the Night's Watch officers and of the good crannogfolk. And everyone, even the meanest privates who would tease Brienne when she first came, even the corn-eating raven and Ghost, Meera but not Jojen, who is still recovering... Everyone has gathered on the courtyard to say farewell, a very fond farewell.
The next night, Jaime and Brienne stop at Last Hearth, where the Umbers give the young couple provisions for the trip and a sleigh to travel faster at least to the Neck, where, after weeks of endless travelling, Jaime and Brienne take to riding the two sturdy horses that pulled the sleigh along the Kingsroad, through the marshy Neck all the way into the peaceful Riverlands, where they follow the road steering clear of the Freys, cross the Red Fork at its ford and spend a night in the Inn at the Crossroads, where Masha instantly recognizes Brienne, assumes the dashing young man must be Jaime Lannister, and makes her best fruit cake for both young people to continue their journey well-fed. Both young lovers receive the delicious sweet cake for dessert and for breakfast.
Within a week, they have entered the Reach once more. But the once lovely and happy land is now desolate and dire, dark clouds cover the bright sun, all of the villages are draped in black, and the bells in every sept in the land toll mournfully, like they usually toll at a funeral.
Long before crossing the Mander, they have even beheld Highgarden itself draped in mourning black. Once before the palace, they find a young lady dressed in a satin gown the colour of midnight, picking white lilies by the riverside as she weeps in a black lace handkerchief, concealing her lovely face... yet displaying a crown of blue winter roses, her nutbrown hair cut short like Brienne's. Why would she constantly be sobbing Renly's name?
From the garden gate saunters the Knight of Flowers, now clothed in black and gold, shortsword held in hand. Approaching his sister, he suddenly recognizes Brienne, and a fire is kindled in his heart, his smooth cheeks now ablaze with rage:
"There you were, you worthless craven! His Grace gave you an offer to fight in our wars, and you declined, to look for that fellow over here... Glad you found him, but that will never make the Reach attain its former glory! Had you taken to the field with us, King Renly wouldn't have fallen before the walls of Storm's End, neither would the fortress itself have shared his fate! Defeat is not what we grieve the most... Now, His Grace is lying in our sept, embalmed, a gaping stab wound where his throat joins his chest! My sister Margaery is no longer pleased to be queen: she has cut her lovely hair, wearing the widow's black...! Had you but fought in our ranks..."
The Maid of Tarth bursts into tears at the fate of her liege lord:
"Renly... I couldn't save his life at all...!", she regretfully sobs. "How does Edric fare?"
"That young boy?" Loras Tyrell asks with an ironic smirk, still incensed. His new black armour is also inlaid with gilt flowers. "They have taken him prisoner to Dragonstone!"
"Edric... Renly... If I only had... How is Tarth? How does my dear isle fare?"
"You're lucky that only the Stormland mainland has been occupied. The waters of Shipbreaker Bay are so treacherous that not even Stannis Baratheon himself has dared to challenge them."
"At least everyone is safe at home..." Brienne thinks, but then, the young Reach knight gives her a piercing glare, drawing steel from an ornate scabbard inlaid with gilt flowers:
"You killed my liege! You took Renly's life! Had you fought by your side, he would still be alive, and the Reach would still remain as grand to us as always!"
"Is this a challenge to single combat?", the Maid replies, pulling out her bright sword as well... but then, the dashing Westerlander steps in between Brienne and Loras, ready to face the latter.
The two young men cross swords gracefully and quickly, as if they were waltzing. The Stormland maiden can only look at the duelists, thinking of what her absence has meant for others, and, regretting that this tragic scene is the consequence of her decisions, she wishes that neither Jaime nor Loras should die. Suddenly, the Knight of Flowers, after a brave thrust from his opponent, drops his sword on the spearmint-covered riverbank. Holding his sword towards Loras Tyrell's throat for a few seconds, the Lannister finally sheaths it, sparing the life of a worthy opponent. Yet crimson blood gushes forth from the blond victor's right wrist, and his face starts growing pale.
"Our maester won't tend to him, no matter how severe his injuries might be", Loras coldly says. "For his sake, Renly was lost. That's for sure. You are thus banished from the court of Highgarden and from the Reach, under penalty of death. We give you two weeks to leave our lands."
Brienne is now certain that Jaime will soon die. Not fully recovered from his time as a wight, he may lose his life before they reach Saltpans in the Riverlands, where they have decided to embark after their unexpected banishment. They are now exiles, forced to return up north again and retrace the steps they have taken. They spend the nights in the same quaint inns where they have slept before, as Jaime comes down with a searing fever, which forces him to lie prostrate, thirsty and delirious, ablaze like dragonfire yet drenched in a cold sweat. In his dreams, always asking for drink and cool air, the Westerlander tosses and turns, and writhes, as if he were possessed. Life and death struggle for him, he grows weaker and weaker for every day, and a regretful Brienne, as she puts the canteen to his lips every now and then, soon beholds that the veins in his wrist surface, dark purple, on his now lilywhite skin, and that, the weaker he becomes, they spread more and more towards his heart, that pounds like the hoofbeats of a cavalry charge upon his left ribs.
She can only think of Renly and Edric, of the Tyrells in their sorrow, of how her quest has been selfish in a certain way and made others suffer. And even made others die. Now, she's even losing Jaime due to the very resolve she had of saving his life. There is still hope in her youthful heart, but, by the time they have entered the Riverlands, this hope is quickly fading away: her Westerlander is now breathing hardly, ablaze with fever, his life a candle flame in the middle of a storm.
Now the sun is setting behind the fortress that Black Harren once dedicated his life to, and the two young people are resting by the liquid mirror that the nearby lake is for Harrenhal. The cool, refreshing lake water shines like liquid gold in the evening twilight. With this shall the Lannister have his thirst quenched this evening.
As the now deeply unconscious Westerlander's life is beginning to recede, the Maid of Tarth has refilled her canteen in the waters of the God's Eye, to give her febrile lover to drink. As she puts the canteen to his lips, she notices a few riders in scarlet and golden livery riding from Harrenhal along the shore, towards the dying lordling and his weary heroine. She recognizes the golden lions on their breastplates. And they recognize the young man who lies, writhing and breathing shallowly, on the bushes that line the lake shores.
"The heir...! He is alive! Our Liege will be so pleased...! Let's take him to the keep, for our maester to tend to his wounds."
"May I follow you? I have saved his life, and brought him over all the way from beyond the Wall!", Brienne explains.
"You're a nice lad! Come on, we're riding back to Harrenhal!"
So the freeriders return to the fortress with an unconscious Jaime and a despairing Brienne. Her worries are soon soothed by the leader of the riders, who reassures her:
"Don't worry! Our maester... Can we call him a maester? Anyway, at Harrenhal, we have got the most skilful surgeon in Westeros, no doubt! There's no one else who can save the life of our Liege's heir..."
At the gates of Harrenhal, the young people are welcomed by the guards standing outside, who appear to be elated at Jaime's arrival, but also worried about his state of health. They rush the unconscious Lannister upstairs to the fortress infirmary, then prepare to lead Brienne into Lord Tywin's quarters. The Maid, however, would rather stand by Jaime's side for the night and meet the governor next day. So they agree that she should stay by the struggling Lannister heir, and help the former Maester Qyburn tend to the now fatal wounds.
We now find them upstairs, in the infirmary. The tall, lean, kindly surgeon, aged and silver-haired, has given the struggling Westerlander a drink of milk of the poppy to ease his searing pain and fever. Stripping Jaime's right sleeve, Qyburn looks at the veins, which have now reached half-way to his elbow, and puts more of the warm narcotic to his lips.
"There is poison in his blood, but, fortunately, it has not got that far. Had the poison reached his heart..."
Brienne grows pale at the fact that Jaime might have died, but she sighs in relief upon being reassured that his life still can be saved, as the wounded heir eagerly quaffs the drug at a single deep draught.
"We'll have to sever this right hand before the poison in his blood spreads anymore. The young lord will have to learn to be left-handed, but at least he will be alive."
With remarkable sang-froid, seizing a sharp knife with a scary-looking blade, he quickly severs Jaime's right hand, as blood and pus are sprayed all over the room. Then, the clean shaven surgeon addresses the Maid of Tarth in a reassuring tone:
"Now, please bring me a ewer of ice-cold water to pour drop by drop, carefully, upon the stump. After an hour or so, bring me fire. One of the torches on the wall will do. It is not enough to amputate. The fire will prevent the poison that remains from spreading any further, and it will also seal the stitches, after the ice water has stanched the blood. I have opened an artery, and we don't want your friend to be drained of blood, do we?"
Soon, the stump is gently washed time after time in cold water to the point that the flesh and blood are freezing, and the icy liquid poured upon the shivering Lannister heir's right wrist ceases to be dyed in scarlet, as his eyelids flicker and the Maid finally catches a glance from those mint-green orbs, before they shut as easily as they have opened. Then, fast as lightning, Brienne rushes for a lit torch on the wall, and soon the stump on Jaime Lannister's right wrist is well cauterized and bandaged.
He spends the whole night in bed, given milk of the poppy to ease his pain and quench his thirst, tended to by his Stormland maiden and by good Qyburn, who remain awake at either side of his bed all night long. During the long wake, Brienne notices that the surgeon is wearing the comfortable black robes of a maester, but no trace of a chain around his neck. And she can't help to inquire why he is missing the chain that every maester wears as a sign of his skills.
"My dear summer child, I was once expelled from the ranks of the Maesters."
"Why did they cast off your chain?", she inquires.
"I dissected people's bodies, to understand more on how our life works. Though I carried out my research in secret... At least, there is Harrenhal, and Lord Tywin has finally seen the worth in my forbidden knowledge." Qyburn has his head buried in his hands, but he is smiling as well.
"I'm glad that you found a good use for your skills."
"Anyway... We had already despaired to find the young heir... we even thought that he was dead. Have you really saved him? Tell me the whole story."
For Brienne, adding more episodes to the story that she's told over and over again is not that hard. Now she has added the welcome that they received at the Reach, with her own reflections on having caused the suffering of the Tyrells and the death of Renly. The pain she feels upon uttering these words makes her heart feel heavy.
The kind surgeon looks at the Stormlander with those warm nutbrown eyes of his as he coolly explains:
"So his heart was frozen overnight... I have heard time after time of the shattered mirror of yore, and a shard must have entered the heart of your friend. Nevertheless, the warmth of your blood, or of your kiss, must have freed him both from this thraldom and from being a living wight. Which I have never heard of before. After all, this world is still half uncharted, but there are wonderful things which science, no matter how much research is carried out, will never explain."
The sun rises, and soon, the Maid has spent three days and three nights awake by her lover's side. Jaime gradually recovers, breathing more steadily, his fever cooling down, and he finally opens a pair of bright green eyes. By the end of the week, his convalescence has finally come to an end, and he can finally stand upright, though he is surprised upon realizing that his right hand is gone. Qyburn calms the young Westerlander down by telling him about how he had to sacrifice a limb to save a life. But how will Jaime ever fight a war without his right hand? His childhood dreams of glory are now drifting away. The Maid of Tarth consoles him with the promise that, back on Tarth, she will be his instructor, and thus, he will be as skillful a swordsman with his sinister hand as if he had always used it in combat.
"No matter," the Lannister heir replies with a shrug. "I was born left-handed. All my early childhood long, until I came to Tarth, I had to train swordfighting and write with my left arm tightly tied to my back. There was no way of untying those knots. So I got used to being a righty... it feels strange to turn left-handed again as a grown-up... right?"
Within that self-same week, Lord Tywin Lannister himself visits his convalescent heir and asks him for forgiveness, for having attempted to live Jaime's life. And the old Lord of the Westerlands is soon forgiven.
Cersei is now living in the Red Keep and crowned Queen of Westeros, but her brother has returned after a long disappearance, making the usually stern Tywin smile for the first time in decades. Moreover, he thanks Brienne for having saved his dear son's life and gives them his blessing, accepting her for a daughter-in-law:
"I hope that you stay as close to each other as my own Joanna, the Seven bless her soul, once was to me. Jaime, you have found a diamond in the rough. There are not many girls like her, and your mother was one of them. Brienne of Tarth, your household may grow pale beside ours, but you have proven yourself worthy of a Lannister scion."
And thus, they take their leave of the wealthy Lord Tywin and his redoubtable keep. He promises the young betrothed that he will visit them one day, and we believe that it will happen in a near future. Before leaving, the Maid of Tarth has a homing raven sent to Evenfall. Lannister freeriders escort their heir and his bride to Saltpans, where they set sail for the Hall where she was born.
Brienne blushes Lannister red as Jaime hauls her below decks. It would be many days before they arrive to face whatever future awaits them but that night when she boldly curls herself around Jaime, no longer children but embracing like they once had; his lips in her hair, her hands balled on his chest, caught up in each other, Brienne knows it will forever be midsummer in their hearts. 
With a good captain and fair wind in their sails, the young couple finally recognizes, in the distance, the cape on which Storm's End stands and a large island dotted with coastal villages. Pretty soon, they have landed on Tarth, where nothing appears to have changed. The sun is shining brightly, the fishermen's wives are mending their nets, and the sept bells ring a merry peal in the warm summer air. On they proceed to Evenfall Hall, where the same old ivy still grows on the walls, and, as they cross the Hall gate, the Evenstar, now grown old, comes in person to greet them, having heard from the villagers of the return of the heiress. All three embrace, father, daughter, and son-in-law, now reconciled and finally proud of each other.
The next day, the same sept bells they heard upon landing peal joyfully once more at the marriage of a now contented young Lannister and his Tarth bride, a crown of ivy on her flaxen hair and a shining breastplate on which his golden locks fall. Though she is as happy as a noble bride can be, the fair Brienne will keep her maiden name for life.
Upon returning home to Evenfall for a modest wedding feast, the newlyweds discover that a wedding gift has been sent to the Hall by carrier raven: a present from Casterly Rock and Tywin Lannister himself. The ornate package contains a right hand of pure solid gold, that the maester of the Hall soon fixes on the green-eyed youth's right wrist stump. Now nothing has come undone. Nearly nothing appears to have changed.
Was it all, then, a long and painful dream?
Jaime and Brienne take each other by the hands, four hands no longer cold and one of them now worth gold. They look into each other's eyes, his green as linden leaves, hers blue as summer seas. And, all at once, both suddenly realize that they can't be happier at all, and that life is the greatest gift they have ever received.
And there we take farewell of them for this time, on the ramparts of Evenfall Hall, all grown up, yet children at heart, on a warm and glorious summer evening, rendered even warmer and more glorious by their feelings.

Everything that shall end

is but a clue.

What cannot be fulfilled

does here come true.

What cannot be described

is here made real.

The eternal feminine

leads us to feel.